Milestone

I am alive!  I've been a horrible blogger, but I am alive.  My computer broke a while ago so my time online is restricted to mostly my Ipod, and I hate typing on that thing.

Okay, so last time I posted was in...August.  A lot has happened since then.  My riding skills have improved exponentially (I think) I spent most of the summer and September focused on Jimmy.  I learned a lot of new things to do and he's a completely different horse now.  We're both still learning, but it's crazy how much we've both improved these past few months.  We're still working on his lope, and slowing it down and making to more consistent.  I managed to get him out in the fields a few times over the summer and he handled it like a champ.  There isn't anything I've found that can make him lose his mind.

Not much has changed with Socks.  I've applied what I've learned with Jimmy with her, so she's also gotten better.  I bought her a pretty leather halter.

I've gotten the chance to ride with a professional barrel racer a few times.  That has been beyond amazing.  I've learned so much from her!  She's helped Jimmy and I a lot.  Hopefully next summer I'll finally be ready to compete.

The most exciting news though is Artemis.  First of all, she finally hit fifteen hands!  I don't care how big she gets now, I just wanted her to hit fifteen hands.  She's getting to be massive.  I'm sure she'll get bigger, we're all thinking she'll be close to sixteen hands, if not sixteen hands.

Second, I've started riding her.  October 26th was our first ride.  Well our first official ride.  I have previously been on her once and led her around, but I count this as our first real ride because this was the first time I directed her at all.  It lasted for just over five minutes but it was long enough.  I lunged her in the round pen first to make sure she didn't have any silliness in her.  We just had a halter on her, no bridle, and I took the lead rope and tied it around to make reins.  I kept the lunge line on her and my mom came in to hold it.  Then I got on.  She could have cared less.  She mostly followed my mom around, and we worked on stopping her.  She was responding to my mom stopping, but that's okay.  She'll start to realize when I pull back and say whoa, that means stop.  The biggest thing about that ride is I actually got her moving forward off of my own command and no help from my mom.  That was big so we ended the ride there.

The second ride was after it snowed so we had it in the arena.  What was really awesome about this was when we went out into the pasture to catch her, she came galloping from across the creek over to us.  There was another horse being ridden, by a friend of mine, in the arena so there was a little more distraction.  It didn't make a difference.  Again, my mom held the lunge line but we focused more on Artemis listening to me.  This ride was a little longer, about ten minutes, and she stopped and started a few times on my command.

The third ride was again in the arena.  She was awesome.  We got her to walk away from my mom and not rely on her for support.  Again we worked on stopping and going.  She's picking it up so quickly.  She knows what my leg pressure means.

The fourth ride was last night.  Again, she was amazing.  We got her to walk around my mom in a big circle on the lunge line and worked on stopping and going.  This time, I also asked her to change directions.  She had no idea what I was asking her at first, but after a few second, she got it.  Then we stopped and started a few more times before I got off.

I cannot describe how proud of her I am.  I couldn't ask her to be any better.  She has her ears pricked forward the whole time each ride.  She's never scared.  She never reacts when I get on her (she's usually not even paying attention) and even though I'm pushing her each ride, it's not scary or frustrating to her.  When she does get confused she just stops and you can almost see the wheels turning in her mind as she tries to figure out what I'm asking her.  Everything about the rides have been calm.

She doesn't feel like a typical young horse.  A lot of young horses I've ridden feel tense, and like they're about to explode at any moment.  She feels just like Jimmy, relaxed but a little unsure.  She hasn't tried to buck, run or rear once.

Our biggest goal is to maintain keeping every ride calm.  I'm okay if she doesn't learn everything in a night.  As long as she tries and is happy, that's good enough for me.  These short rides (ten minutes long at the most) are working well so far.  They're short enough as to not overload her with new information.  They're long enough accomplish what I want, but not too long to be hard on her.  And she sure loves getting a nice long grooming after them.

Ride five will hopefully be tonight.  We'll be switching from the halter to the bitless bridle so it'll really be about seeing how she reacts to it and getting her used to the pressure.  Then she'll get a few days off.

The last exciting news is that my sister's horse, Sadie, is moving to a stable near us today!  It's not actually at the stable Socks and the others are at, my sister wanted one a little closer to home, but I'm still happy to have Sadie around.

Our First Ride

So we went out yesterday to just check on the ponies and somehow, from that, this ended up happening.  I'm still not entirely sure how.

The bottom of Artemis' pasture is pretty flooded out, but it's not really that much worse than usual.  It's not fast-moving or dangerously deep, and she still has over half the field of high ground to get away from it.  The worst issue is the bugs.  They're absolutely insane out there and made for a very eager Artemis to come inside. 

Since she was up at the barn, I saddled her up and lunged her.  We had an audience today, (K and our barn owners) so instead of my mom helping me out, K helped me out.  She held Artemis while I leaned over her back and then lead her around.  Like usual, Artemis was fine with it.  So we decided to see how she'd be with K leaning over her back.  Artemis didn't care.

Since she was being so good, we decided to push a little further.  We wanted to see how she'd be with me actually sitting on her.  I think the video speaks for itself.

When I first put my leg over her, she tensed up for a second and then relaxed almost immediately.  The two moments where she does start to get tense are when she begins sidestepping.  But as you can see, she at no point had any inclination to freak.  In fact, she was a lot more calm than I was.  I was freaking out inside the whole time.  She didn't share my trepidation.  At the beginning of the video, when she turns her head away from the camera, she's actually trying to nibble on my foot.

I know I'm only on her for like thirty seconds but it felt like forever to me.  We ended the day once I got off of her.  She did so awesome, it would have been stupid to expect more out of her.

There's still a lot of work to do, but I've put a plan of sorts into place.  I think I'm going to switch Socks and Artemis out for a while, so Artemis comes up into the pens and Socks gets some down time in the pasture.  This way I'll be able to work with Artemis more regularly for a while.  This won't happen until the round pen is dried up because I intend have my first real ride (where no one leads her and I'm controlling her) in the safely enclosed round pen.

I'm so proud of her, I couldn't stop smiling all of last night because I couldn't stop thinking of how awesome she was.

As an ending note, the flooding, for the moment, seems stable.  As far as I've heard it hasn't gotten worse and waters have even begun to recede a bit.  Hopefully that keeps up.