Erin’s Got Gait

My trainer’s assistant Erin has given me lessons numerous times when my trainer has been out of town. She always tells me that she loves teaching us and that Apache and I are so much fun and so interesting. Today, in lieu of taking my usual lesson with my trainer, I asked Erin to ride him, so that she can experience the thrill of riding a gaited horse, as well as have the first hand knowledge for when she teaches us. It was her first time on a gaited horse ever. She had a lot of fun. I recorded it and you can watch the video here. Erin was having to learn how to keep him square and steady in his gait, much trickier on a horse that can do as many different gaits as he can. She was also having to ask for go without letting him run up into a canter. While you may have to do that with any horse, it becomes harder when you are having to concentrate on other things you’re not used to. Apache does run into a canter a few times on her, but she gets him back. He also gets pacey a few times, and then on the second to last pass, he’s really pacey the entire time, even at his dog walk. Off camera, I mentioned it to her and told her how to feel for it and to use the hard ground to her advantage to listen for a square rythym in his hoofbeats. She took another pass down there and another pass back, just at a dog walk, feeling for it, and correcting him. Part of that last pass back down towards me is on the video and you can see that she is finally able to break it up a bit. My trainer came up just after that and he did one more nice square pass, but I didn’t get that on film. Overall, considering that it was her first time with him and his first time with her, I think she did a fabulous job. The first few passes, he is poking his nose out a bit too much and isn’t as square and steady as I’d like most of the way down, but each time, just as she gets to me, she gets him to hit that stride and does a great running walk to the end of the road.

On the Road Again

Today, we took Apache out on the road and worked him on the hard ground. The last few times we did that, he was super animated, yet balanced and controlled. Before the last few times, he has always been animated and pumped when we go out on the road, but goosey and uneven. We were finally able to start getting some consistency out of him but still with the added momentum and energy we get when we don’t make him work in the arena. He hates just going around in circles and loves having a long stretch of open road ahead of him to motor down. I finally remembered my video camera today so I could see for myself how he looks with that extra animation. He was still well behaved and controlled, but less animated than he usually is on the road. It was cool to get to see video, but it was a little disappointing that the day I remembered my camera was not one on which he gave a dazzling performance. Don’t get me wrong – he was a good boy and he looks good, but I know that since it didn’t *feel* like he was stepping as big and as fast as he usually does on the road, that he must *look* even better when I do feel that. We did a little bit of slow gaiting back and forth, and then finally sped him up coming down the road towards home for a few passes. During one of the passes a big water truck showed up and was coming up the road behind him, although you can’t see it in the video. It caused him to lift and puff up quite a bit and take some goofy steps, but didn’t really give him any extra go. You can hear my trainer laughing at him when he does it in the video, which you can find here.

Apache Anecdotes

I don’t know why, but today I was thinking about all the times that I have come off of Apache.
The first time was during the first month or so I had him. He was very clumsy for the first few years, frequently tripping and stumbling. That first month, we were cantering in the arena, and he tripped so hard and fell so far down that his face hit the ground. In fact, he had sand all in his nose and his eyes. As for me, I suddenly had no horse under me anymore, so I flew forward and ended up on all fours in front of him. In the end, I wasn’t really hurt. I had some pain and swelling in the knee that hit first, but it went away within an hour or two.

The second and third times were on two consecutive days, around 2 years after I got him. Both times, we were crossing a steep ditch by our barn to get to the trails. On the way up the far side, on both days, he went into bucking fits. On both occassions, he threw me straight up, then moved to the side so that there was no horse under me when I came down. I found it a little strange that he did that two days in a row when it was so out of character for him. When I got back to the barn, a massage therapist was there looking at a friend of mine’s horse. I asked him to look my horse over and see if he found anything without telling him what had happened. He came back and told me that my horse had fairly bad pain in his lower back and it had probably been there for a long time, but he had a high tolerance to pain and probably mostly hides it. It fit the fact that Apache usually didn’t do the crazy bucking thing, but that when going up a steep hill with a heavy western saddle pressing down on his lower back, he complained loudly. I hired the massage therapist to work on him for a few months and noticed a dramatic change in his personality and attitude. I felt bad that he had been in pain and I hadn’t known it, but I was glad to finally get it resolved.

The fourth time was the only time I’ve ever known my horse to do something purposefully malicious. It was around 3 years after I got him and I had started working with a trainer for the first time since I got him. I was working with the barn’s dressage/hunter trainer to learn jumping and more advanced dressage techniques to fine tune him. We were working on lead changes that day and he had gotten to the point that he was bored and didn’t want to do what I was asking him anymore. I had just cross the diagonal and asked for the flying change and he didn’t give it to me. My trainer was telling me keep asking as we reached the rail and headed into the corner. He suddenly started pulling at the reins, running through my hand, and speeding up into a gallop. He had done this before when trying to avoid giving me a change and in this instance we were switching to his bad lead, so it wasn’t a surprising reaction. The suprising part was that as we reached the corner, he wasn’t bending to make the turn. He was barreling stiff as a board straight for the fence ahead. He had a history of playing chicken with me like that as one of his avoidance techniques. Usually about 10 feet out, he’d pull a cow horse move, slamming on the brakes and rocking back onto his haunches and sliding into the fence. He always just ended up with his chest in the fence, so I never quite understood how he thought that affected me. Anyway, at this point, I figure he’s just up to that old trick again. But at 10 feet out, he doesn’t slam on the brakes.It occurs to me that he might mean to try and jump the fence. We had taught him to jump and been doing a lot of it recently. Of course, there was no way he could jump a 5 foot fence so if he tried, it would be disasterous for both of us. But maybe he wasn’t thinking about that. I sat tight and waited to see what he would do as I continued trying to halt him. Another stride and he didn’tt slam on the brakes. At this point, just in case, I slipped one foot out of the stirrup and shifted my weight to one side. If he was going to try and get over the fence, there was no way I was going along for that ride and I was preparing to bail. As soon as he felt my weight shift, he slammed on the brakes and flung his back end around into the fence, effectively tossing me off of his back and into the fence. I covered my head waiting for his hooves to land on me, but he was planted and didn’t move an inch once I came off. I was pinned pretty tight in between his legs and the fence though. I squirmed my way out and reached for the reins and the second he saw that, he yanked his head away and took off galloping and bucking across the arena. My trainer in the mean time was running towards us yelling, “Oh my god, oh my god, are you okay?!” I said I was and she said she couldn’t believe what he just did. She said, “I have never seen him do anything like that before. That was deliberately malicious.” Given his normally sweet and hammy personality, it was astounding, and a bit scary. I never could have imagined him doing something like that. I never went to the doctor, but I think I broke my pinky finger that day – maybe a hairline fracture, nothing major. He flung me into the fence right where a little gate was and my hand hit the metal latch. A few minutes after the incident, when the adrelanine wore off, my finger started hurting. Over the course of the day it got worse and worse until my entire hand was throbbing. I took some pain killers and went to bed and after that it was never that bad again, but I couldn’t bend or use that finger for a while and it was a long time before I could entirely straighten it out again. Apache has never done anything like that since.

The fifth time was right after I moved him out to California in the summer of 2005, about 5 1/2 years after I got him. I was riding in my flat saddle doing a flat work lesson with my trainer at the time. She asked me what my long term goals were and I mentioned that I eventually wanted to get back into jumping. Well, she set up an X right then and there and asked me to go over it. I felt pretty uncomfortable since I had taken a year off from riding when I first moved here and Apache was still in Texas. I hadn’t gotten my bearings back quite yet, nor had Apache. Not to mention I was in a flat saddle! I mentioned that I was concerned, but she was insistent. In retrospect, if I wasn’t comfortable, I should have stood my ground, but I had the attitude back then that trainers were to be trusted unquestioningly and wouldn’t ever ask you to do something that would be dangerous for you or that they weren’t sure you could do. After the incident I’m about to describe, I no longer feel that way. I do believe that you have to be a with a trainer that you trust, which is why, after this incident and my loss of trust in this trainer, I moved to a different barn. However, at the end of the day, if your trainer does ask you do something that you aren’t comfortable with or that you aren’t sure you can do without putting yourself in danger, you are responsible for your own safety and have to insist on it. So, at the time, I naively went ahead and did what she asked. Well, Apache, still being a very green jumper, having not jumped in a year and a half, and having always been frisky on the landings, went into a huge bucking fit on the landing. I was already off balance when we landed because I also was a very green jumper and hadn’t jumped in a year and a half either, or been riding at all for very long after my year off. So when he started bucking, I came right off, especially in a flat saddle. I flipped over in the air and landed on my back. The first thing to hit the ground was the back ball of my pelvis on the right side. It was pretty painful, but I did get back on and ride for a few minutes (no more jumping though). I won’t even bother to go over the conversation that trainer and I had after I fell. By the time I got home, it was hurting pretty badly, so I laid down in bed. I didn’t get up for about 2 hours until I had to go to the bathroom. When I tried to get up and walk, I fell over and started crying because of the shooting pain in my thigh and I thought I had broken my pelvis. My boyfriend at the time wanted to take me to the emergency room, but I just wanted to get back in bed and lay down. I couldn’t imagine having to sit up in a chair all night in a waiting room. By the next morning, the pain in my leg was gone and I could walk with no problems, so I decided nothing was broken. I did have a bruise on my back and sitting was pretty damn painful. I took a pillow to work with me for a week to sit on. When I was still experiencing some pain two weeks after the incident, my boyfriend finally convinced me to go to the doctor. Up until then, the fact that it was getting better every day made me think it couldn’t be anyting serious. The doctor ordered some x-rays and the results showed that I had slipped my last lumbar vertebrae under my first sucral. She said it wasn’t severe enough to require any surgery and eventually would correct itself, but I wasn’t to ride for 2 months. By the way, I am very happy with my new trainer. She has taken a slow, steady, repetitive approach to jumping with me since I first started up again, which took about a year for me to even work up to.

So that’s it. I’ve had him for 7 1/2 years and I’ve come off of him 5 times. Hopefully it will be a while before I come off again.

Leaps and Bounds

So I jumped Apache twice last week, with two very different results. Up to now, all our jumping lessons have been going over one or two poles on one long side of the arena, then riding around to a small X on the other long side of the arena, basically making our path around just inside the rail. My trainer says that my timing and my feel for the jumps has gotten good, that my confidence has improved, and that I’m very patient with my body up to the jumps. We’re ready to move onto the next step. She has started setting up courses for me, so that I can start learning how to work on geometry, memorizing the patterns, putting in lead changes where necessary, etc. That has been the focus in the two lessons we did this week.

The first jumping lesson was on Thursday and it was extremely cold for this time of year, with temparatures in the 40s. Due to the sudden drop in temperature, the horses were all really frisky and distracted. Apache was no expection. He was running through my hand, racing to the jumps, and running off on the landings with some lovely bucks thrown in occassionaly. In the worst of the landing fits, he threw his head up to avoid my half halts when he started to run, took off galloping, threw in a big buck and got me high enough up in the the saddle that I cut the inside of my right knee through my jeans on the stirrup leather buckle. It was stinging the rest of the lesson. Well actually it was stinging until I got home and put some ointment on it, but after that it was fine. After we finished jumping that day, I started to let him canter a few times around to blow off some steam, and he did it again… He threw his head up, lunged sideways, then took off galloping. It took me a quarter of the ring to get him stopped. He has not acted like that in ages.

Fortunately, Sunday was much better. It was unusually hot on Sunday, with the temperature almost hitting 90. Needless to say, with the extreme shift to the temperature being so high, the horses were very low energy. Apache was again no exception, although as always, he did perk up when we started jumping. He just loves to jump. However, having energy did not mean misbehaving, ignoring me, or trying to evade at all. He was good about coming back to me when I half halted, nice and quiet on the landings, and very straight over all the jumps. That was actually what we were working on in that lesson. My trainer pointed out that in our Thursday lesson, he was pretty crooked over all the jumps and not centered. I’m not sure I am a strong enough jumper yet that I would have been able to get that out of him with the way he was acting on Thursday anyway, but admittedly, it wasn’t remotely what I was worrying about. On Sunday, it was much improved. I got him going very straight in and out of all of the poles. Of course, I never did get him to go entirely straight over the jump, although we did improve.

Regardless, we ended the lesson with a big victory for me. Apache is a head strong horse and he likes to be in control. For a lot of our jumping history, I have felt like I am just along for the ride. He usually insists on the speed we’re going to go. Even when I’m trying to slow him down, he’s very strong. When I’m trying to slow him down, it’s usually just because I’m trying to work on keeping a consistent rythym, and of course being in control of what the speed is, not because I have a certain distance that I know I’m shooting for. Whether he listens to me or not regarding the speed, he pretty much decides the distance, and I just make sure I stay on. The lesson on Sunday ended with me taking him over the X four times. The first three, he kept speeding up to the jump about 5 or 6 strides out, despite me checking him to keep his pace, then putting in an extra step at the last minute over the jump and hitting it with his front feet, because he was feeling lazy and tired. So, the last time around, I made him stay in my rythym until about 3 strides out, then I pushed him up to the jump, then when we hit the distance, I kicked and he went for it, completing a nice big, round jump without hitting the poles. It was the first time that I felt I was able to think through everything in the short amount of time you have before it’s all over, and execute it just how I wanted, and that I made the decisions about how it was going to go and they were followed. It was a great feeling. I think that we still have a long way to go because Apache wants to be in control and he needs to learn to trust that it will be okay if he gives that control up to me. He obviously has learned that in general, but jumping is new, challenging, and sometimes scary, and I think he needs to learn to apply it to this situation as well. That being said, this lesson was a first small victory down that road!

One other thing I wanted to mention was a lovely compliment I got from my trainer, other than the nice things she said about my jumping. She said that Apache is so cute over fences and such a great horse. She said that people in the barn are always amazed by and comment on my horse. She said they are amazed by the fact that he knows no bounds. He doesn’t realize that a lot of horses just do one or two things and has the greatest attitude about doing everything and anything. It is always great to hear that people other than you are impressed with your animals. : )

Better Pictures!

Here is my flickr set with the pictures of me riding Better:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/schmickie/sets/72157594547843516/

It Just Keeps Getting Better

This weekend, I drove down to Felton to see my friend Libby’s horse, Natural Ice, who is also a Spotted Saddle Horse, like Apache. She has him in training down there with Nicole Schoppe at Hidden Gait Ranch. She wanted me to come down and see how he was doing and the progress they’ve made, as well as check out his new home. While I was down there, Nicole let me ride her walking horse gelding Better. He is a big black walker with a big, strong jawed Midnight Sun type head, which I really like. He has a cute little black spot right on the end of his nose in the middle of his white strip. She let me work him at the flat walk, running walk, and canter. Once we were in the arena, and I got to work him out on the rail, he really opened up his running walk for me. I got a few good passes and he felt awesome. He’s got a hell of a reach and really rolls once he hits his stride. It was quite an experience. I will have pictures up soon.

Ice was looking in good physical shape and seemed a lot happier too. He was a little annoyed with me when he tried to sit on me, to let me know that he wanted his butt scratched, and I responded by shoving him off of me instead of complying. He tried it about 10 more times, getting shoved back each time and finally, he pinned his ears and barred his teeth at me. After that, though, he realized he wasn’t gonna be able to bully me into anything and gave up. He was grumpy with me for a few minutes, but then got over it and came over to get some pats on the nose.

The show season will be starting soon and these guys will both be amongst my competition. Should be an interesting year. : )

Apache Rides Again

I finally got to ride Apache on Sunday for the first time in almost a month. From the way he was acting, you’d think he hadn’t been out of his stall in all of that time. He was kah-razy. The fact that there was a surreal Alfred Hitchcock-esque gang of birds hanging out in about three different trees as well as lining all the power lines surrounding the arena didn’t help. It was the loudest noise I’ve ever heard a group of animals make and didn’t make Apache any calmer. We had a number of tantrums where he took off running and bucking. He even played chicken on me with the side of the barn. What a dork. We worked a “trot” (i.e., gait) circle for a long time, until he quit trying to turn it into a galloping trapezoid. : P After that we lapped the arena until he quit his I’m-excited-and-I-want-to-rack-no-matter-what-you-say antics and gave me the running walk I was asking for. After that, I finally let him canter. He decided to start up the antics again at that point. Instead of his nice rocking chair canter, he was giving me a lock-legged slamming into the ground hopping thing that was sometimes 3 beats, sometimes 4, and sometimes I just couldn’t even tell what his legs were doing. That went on for several minutes as I fought him on a circle trying to get him to bend, move forward, and give me a real canter. He finally totally broke down and started flailing his legs all over the place and hopping around without going forward at all. I smacked him on the neck and spurred him into a tight circle and then he decided to behave. After that he gave me a lovely little canter, so I let him hand gallop around the entire circumference of the arena for a few laps. After that, we were done. He still had plenty of energy, but dinner had come while I was riding and he knew everyone else was getting to eat. Since he had behaved, I let him cool out and join them. It was quite the experience. Still, it’s always a confidence builder to realize you are accomplished enough of a rider to handle it when your horse doesn’t want to cooperate. My sister did get some good pictures out of the experience.

The Trail Course

By the way, in case anyone was curious, the trail course at the show this weekend was as follows. Enter at a walk and stop in front of the hay bale. Dismount and walk your horse to the hay bale. Spray your horse with a few squirts of the provided fly spray and check two hooves for rocks with the provided hoof pick while your horse stands quietly. Remount, using the hay bale as a mounting block if desired. Walk your horse to the bridge and stop on the bridge for a two seconds before proceeding. Proceed at an intermediate gait to the pivot box. Step into the pivot box and ask your horse to do a full circle. Step out of the pivot box and proceed at a walk to the slicker hanging on a pole. Take the slicker off the pole and put it on. Remove the slicker and hang it back on the pole. Pick up a canter and canter to the cavaletti poles, laid out in a hand shaped pattern. At a walk, weave through the cavaletti poles in a serpentine pattern. Walk to the cones and turn your horse around. Back through the cones in a serpentine pattern. Turn your horse back around and proceed at an intermediate gait to the water obstacle (a box tray with water in it). Walk through the water obstacle and proceed to the cavaletti pole. Sidepass down the cavaletti pole to the mailbox. Open the mailbox and take out a piece of candy. Proceed at walk to the rope gait. Remove the rope, go through the gate, and replace the rope, without dropping the rope.

That’s it, that was the course we did. Thought some of you might be curious/interested.

Gaited Show This Weekend

I ventured up to Vallejo this weekend with Apache for the 5th Annual All Gaited Breed Show put on by PPHRNA (Peruvian Paso Horse Registry of North America) at the Solano County Fairgrounds. It was a very last minute decision as I was under the false impression that the show was in two more weeks. So I got the dog boarded last minute, packed up some bags, called my trusty hauler, who fortunately was available, made a reservation on hotels.com and got up there Friday night after work. First thing Saturday morning I was up at the fairgrounds to get him ready for the halter classes. He was actually quite good while I did his braids. I didn’t even have to put a halter on him to do his mane braid. He moved around just enough while I was trying to do his forelock that I had to halter him, but he was still very good – none of his usual hitting me in the stomach with his nose the whole time or trying to stick his nose in the air to put his forelock out of reach. Once I had the braids done and any poop or dirt stains wiped off with Cowboy Magic, I went and got myself into my saddle seat suit.

The show office was running late so I waited until about 8:30 to get Apache’s bridle on and take him to the warm up ring. Now, ever since our last show months ago, I have been working on halter with him a little bit every time I ride. I make him stand quietly without chewing the bit and with his head where it’s supposed to be and ears up. He has been *soooooo* good about it. However, in the warm up at the show this weekend, he went right back to being his old self. I was so annoyed with him. Even at the last show we went to, before we did all the extra work, he was really good in halter, standing alert without moving a muscle and not chewing at all. Granted, that wasn’t typical at all, which is why we worked on it so much, but after doing all that work, I was quite upset that he was ignoring what he knew I wanted him to do. I kept correcting him and he would stop for 2 seconds, then go back to it. I did what I could, but, the show finally started about 45 minutes late and we were in the first class of the day – Halter, SSH, Stallions & Geldings, 3 & over. He kept breaking his stance, chewing on the bit, slobbering everywhere, and putting his nose up in the air while gnawing on the bit instead of standing still with his head where it belongs, and of course, even while the judge was giving him his once over. We got 2nd place out of 3 entries, which frankly, I was amazed by given his performance.

After that class, I put him back in the stall to give him a mental and physical break for a few classes, then got him back out and took him back to the warm up to work on standing still some more. I was a lot harsher in my corrections, using the crop, when he wouldn’t listen, and he got a little better, but still mostly didn’t care what I thought or had to say about it. Finally our next class was up – Halter, Open Gaited Breed, Stallions & Geldings, 3 & over. He did a little better, still doing everything he did the first time, but a little less than before. This time we got 1st out of 3 entries, which was just nuts, but I am not complaining.

We were elligible for the Championship Halter class then, so again I gave him another break for a few classes. Then, I took him back to the warm up and worked on him some more before we had to go in. The Championship Hatler class had 5 entries, including a gorgeous Peruvian Paso stallion, two other Peruvians, the only horse from the 2 & under division, which was a black TWH stallion, and Apache. They asked us to show our horses in hand in gait for what seemed like an eternity before they asked us to stand them up. Apache was, again, a little better than the previous two classes, but still not great. They sent us down to the other end of the arena after they gave everyone a once over, so they could deliberate. Not surprisingly, the black Peruvian stallion took the Championship ribbon.

After the halter class Championship ended, there was a 10 minute break before the under saddle classes began. I ran and got Apache’s black leather cutback saddle and bridle on and took him to the warm up ring, because we were in the 2nd under saddle class – SSH, 2 gait, Open. I was disappointed to find that Apache was *not* on his game. He was not giving me his usual swing in his gait, he was not hitting it with his strong rhythm – it felt kind of strung out or just dead…not animated. And I was having to push push push to keep him going. He wanted to die out. This was *really* weird for Apache. At home, he does somtimes make me push him, but he’ll still give me a nice rhythm and swing. And at shows, he is usually 10 times the horse he usually is, giving me tons of animation and push. That’s what I got from him at the Elk Grove show and what won us all those blues and reds. When we got into the arena it was even worse. I think he was already not feeling up to his usual self, but on top of that he didn’t like the arena footing – it was awful, granted, but the other horses were managing. I was not at all surprised when we got 5th place out of 8 – except that I was surprised we got anything at all.

Our next class was SSH, 3-gait, Open. I warmed up his canter, which he was doing amazingly well, but he was still awful in his gaits, relative to what he usually gives me at shows and still not that great compared to even what I get at home when he’s bored in the arena. My friend Libby had shown up by then and watched the class. She said we looked *great* – that Apache was the only one with any swing, but of course technically SSH do not have to have a gait with swing (a walking gait) – any four-beat gait is correct, so the judge may (and should) not care about that. She also said his canter looked gorgeous, which I could feel anyway. He picked up his left and right lead with no problems and had a nice, floating, rocking chair motion, with his head down and bent at the poll, great, consistent rhythm – everything you could want. All that canter work paid off! I have no idea how everyone else’s canter looked. The other two horses were behind me both ways of the ring on the canter, so I couldn’t see them. Anyway, we still ended up getting 3rd of 3, which I assume was because of his pitiful performance on two slower gaits. After that, Apache was done for the day.

The second day, we were again in the first class of the day – Open Gaited Breed, Trail Class (i.e., trail obstacle). He aced *everything* except the water obstacle and the gate.I was really proud of him because he sailed right through everything else. For the water obstacle, they had this box/tray that is used to soak cattle hooves. It looked really weird and he had never seen anything like it before (nor had I), so he refused it. All the other horses refused it too, except one – Nicole Shoppe’s horse. Every other horse that got worked up at the water obstacle didn’t do very well on the last two that came after that – the side pass to the mailbox and the gate – but Apache kept his composure. His side pass to the mailbox was the best side pass he’s ever given me. Apache messing up on the gate actually shocked me – I figured we’d ace it – but it wasn’t because of being worked up and he recovered well. After turning him on the haunch to get through the gate, when I asked him to back up to the pole so I could reattach the rope, he backed to the left instead of straight back, which he does a lot. That made the rope stretch at an angle kind of under his neck, which he decided he didn’t like and tried to back away from. I kicked him forward, but not very aggressively because he’s usually very responsive. Turns out I should have kicked *hard* because he decided not to respond and took one more step back, which made the rope taught enough that I couldn’t hold on to it anymore, so I dropped it. However, I had already planned ahead as to what I would do if that happened, even though I didn’t imagine we’d have any problems with the gate, when I saw another girl drop the rope and dismount and then try to get back on while juggling the rope and keep her spooked horse close enough to the gate to keep it in hand. I walked Apache to the end where the rope was still attached, high enough up on the pole that I could reach it, grabbed that end and then snaked it through my hands until the unattached end was in my hands. Then I backed Apache right back up to the other pole and reattached it. So, that could have gone better too, but since I know he can ace gates, I’m not worried about it. I just need to react faster and harder next time when he steps away and be prepared to correct him backing to the left. The water obstacle however is something I plan on practicing a lot at home, once I can find one of those cow hoof soakers. The class results? Nicole Schoppe’s horse, of course, got 1st, and we got 2nd, out of 8 entries.

After the trail class, the arena was open for a while, so I took him in there and warmed him up for a bit just going through his gaits and he was awesome – totally animated. But that was in the morning when it was still cold. Our first under saddle class wasn’t for a few hours – Open Gaited Breed, 3 gait. I just did that one as a warm up before any of the SSH classes. Unfortunatelly, he had reverted to the way he was the day before. I had to really push him for his gaits. We still managed to get 1st place out of 3 entries though (his canter at least was awesome). The other horses were an Icelandic and some random gaited breed I couldn’t recognize. I’m not sure how they did, I didn’t really see, but we somehow got 1st. The next class (immediately after this one) was SSH Owner to Ride. We got 3rd of 5, which was good considering how dead Apache was being. I ended up going in one championship class – SSH 2 Gait Open – before the hauler showed up and we had to leave. I decided to take my crop in that time and before the class I warmed him up and let him know I was willing to use it. After that he wasn’t giving me trouble in the class with dying out on me, but his gait still wasn’t really *on*, you know, relative to what I know he’s capable of. However, it was good enough that we got Reserve Champion. Between that and the Trail performance, I was really happy with the results, but I was a little annoyed with him being so dead and off his game the whole show as far as his gaits go. Still, over all, he was a good boy!

Canter Work

Apache has made so much progress on his canter. I am totally thrilled about where we’re at. He hardly ever gives me the left lead when I want the right lead anymore. In fact, the other day, he gave me the right lead when I asked for the left. Not good, I know, but remarkable given his old patterns. We have done a lot of work over the past 6 months on simple lead changes while doing a change of direction on the diagonal. He has gotten very good at that, sometimes switching leads in as little as one or two strides in a middle gait. The past few weeks, we have been working on doing simple lead changes up the middle of the arena on a straight away. We have gotten up to four swaps on one pass. He has made such amazing progress. His right lead canter has gotten to the point that it’s just a smooth and rhythmic as the left lead. He still doesn’t want to bend at the poll as much as he is willing to on the left lead, but that’s about the only difference these days. The next advancement will be perfecting the flying lead change. We have done some work on that, but I think he’s finally in a place where we can make good headway there.