November 18, 2010 - Rory's new clothes



Rory looks good in turquoise!

 The Royal is over again for another year.  I went with the barn owner's two horses again this year as braider and groom.  The girls did well in the CSH classes.  I made a point of watching the Governor General's Cup and the Lieutenant Governor General's Cup classes for three year olds.  It gave me a good idea of what I need to prepare for if Rory qualifies for those classes in 2011.  There was one horse that reminded me of Rory - with similar conformation/flaws - who got pulled into the top ten in the GG's Cup and top five in the LG's Cup.  It's encouraging.  I hit the trade show and did some damage to my budget, but everything was a good deal.  I got Rory's winter turnout the first night for 20% off.  They also had rainsheets on sale and I bought one for Rory the morning we left as it is still too warm for the insulated blanket on a furry horse.

These blankets are advertised as being adjustable up or down a full size from the listed size, so I bought one size too large for Rory's current size (he's 72" right now).  He's at the age where he's still growing and could need the larger size before the end of winter.  The ability to go up yet another size also opens up the possibility that he could wear the blankets again next year - assuming his buddies don't rip them apart.  I wasn't willing to spend a lot of money on blankets that he quite probably wouldn't be able to wear another year so I went with a "cheap" brand.  So far I'm quite pleased with the blankets. 

I put the rainsheet on Rory when I got home, snugged it down as small as it would go and it fits him quite nicely.  The top chest strap is a bit lower than I'd like, but that seems to be a common issue with smaller blanket sizes. The rainsheet is one of the ones that has a mesh lining behind the nylon shoulder area, and as I expected the mesh attempted to crawl off over Rory's tail as he ran about his field for a few minutes.  Mesh can't move forwards against the hair so the blanket ends up jammed tight around the horse's shoulders, and the high neck styles have the high neck pulled back and rolled in - which funnels the rain neatly down inside the blanket.  I took the blanket off, and took it home with me so I could spend a couple of hours sewing a nylon lining over the mesh area.  Normally I wouldn't buy a mesh lined blanket, but this one was inexpensive enough that I was willing to do the work to cover it.  We had a torrential rain overnight Tuesday and into Wednesday and Rory was nice and dry under the rainsheet when I brought him in on Wednesday.

Rory's still a little uncertain about the putting on and removal of the blanket, but he doesn't try to escape.  Today I sort of squashed it together over his back and wiggled it around and made it rustle before actually taking it off.  We worked a bit on the longeing concepts again today.  Another horse was being longed at the other end of the arena and we occasionally had to stop and watch for a bit, especially when she started to canter.  Rory was good.  He's getting the "walk on" very well (same command as in hand), "out" is coming, and "whoa" isn't too bad either - depending on how distracted he is.  Tightening the surcingle in the arena was a bit of a wigglefest, but I got it snugged up.  He doesn't have sidereins or anything like that just yet, but I have him wearing boots, surcingle and bridle just so he grows accustomed to doing things with tack on.  Many of the jumps have moved into the arena for the winter so the far corners are full of equipment.  Rory was wary of them at first, but was fine once he had a chance to go and take a look - and stick his nose into the box of flowers.

Earlier this week we went for a walk around outside.  Partway down the road, round the track.  Rory half bolted a couple of times, but turned back to me when he felt the pressure on his halter without a lot of effort on my part.  I was quite pleased with that given his baby tendency to just decide he's leaving.  We're facing a longish walk down the road in the next couple of weeks.  I'll pick a quiet time of day, but we're going to be working on the longeing and yielding to pressure on the halter leading up to the day.

October 2, 2010 - Introducing longeing

Rory learns to walk in a circle around me without coming
closer to me as he goes around

Today I brought Rory in, put him on the crossties and treated him like I would the brat.  I went to get his grooming kit, then later to get his bridle, the saddle blanket and surcingle, and then again  to get his boots.  I groomed him, picked out his feet and pulled the crossties out of his mouth.  He was a little suspicious of the saddle blanket (it’s been a while since I put it on him) so I did the rub all over with folded up blanket, repeating with less folded blanket until he was okay with it.  After that the surcingle was no big deal.  He didn’t mind me doing up the surcingle’s girth around his belly either.  I put his boots on, then his bridle and nylon halter over top.  The halter seemed tight and I had to let the crown out a hole.

I had in mind to teach him about turning with “rein” pressure (on the halter, not bit) today, but when we went out to the arena it had stuff for tonight’s barn party in a couple of corners.  The big back door and one side door were open too which was a little distracting.  I started just with “touch” going up to the piles of picnic tables, then to the flatbed trailer that does duty as a band stand.  He was quick to touch the tables, and a little slower to touch the trailer, but he did it and got his carrot chunk.

We did some review of walking and halting, backing, turning and such before I went and got a short longe whip out of the corner.  I’d wanted a dressage whip, but there wasn’t one there, and I thought the longe whip would suffice if I wrapped the lash around the stick.  Then we started to introduce the idea of longeing.  He only got about 3-4’ of lead rope away from me, and I walked a smaller circle inside his.  He got the idea of going forward without being led, and going out on the circle rather than cutting in towards me.  Carrot chunks helped him figure out when he was doing the right thing.  We did a little bit both ways, then I put the whip back and picked up his piles after the BO came in with the tractor.   A friend popped in and I got her to take some photos while Rory showed off his longe lesson and some trotting in hand. 



Trotting in hand



We did a bit of walking around, visiting people, and finished with a walk round the track before going back to the barn.  Rory was pretty good going around the track except for one attempt at breaking away back for the barn.  He kicked out in my direction again when he spun away, but fortunately was far enough away that it wasn’t even close to hitting me.  I was focused on stopping him and not in any position to reprimand it specifically.  He did stop, and got a little back up, turn, move your bum away work before we continued on.  We stopped for a minute to see three horses that came up to the fence, and after that he stopped trying to trot and was more willing to just walk actively.