Before I left for GenCon in Indianapolis last Thursday, I had set up a time for my old Livejournal acquaintance/friend J to come out and give Gwyn a massage.
The mare herd. The paint filly has taken a liking to me and Gwyn
Odd cuts on her mouth. I wonder if it's something she's eating in the pasture?
We accidentally got the puppy stuck. The kids ran wild while Gwyn got her massage
Bodyworker's notes included:
overall body condition is good yay!
Tenderness in hamstrings and low back
pelvis was pulled forward into her low back on her right side, stood in a hollow pelvic posture
left shoulders and base of neck were adhesed
poll locked up, more on the left
good lumbar sacral range of motion
good limb flexibility after massage
Follow up:
benefit from hamstring stretches after exercise, drawing hind legs forward under her body
stretching the shoulder forward adn back will help maintain suppleness
She was starting to fall asleep. I think it was feeling good.
Her shoulders were uneven. She's showing me how to do stretches.
Containing Hazel helped by the end.
My friend came out with her daughter for a pony ride. Everyone took a turn and Gwyn was foot perfect, even with giant dump trucks driving in and out of the property. They belonged to a dairy farm in Monroe and they lease one of the far fields and were amending the soil to prepare for winter wheat planting.
In stark contrast to previous times she's been put up on Gwyn, Hazel was thrilled to ride Gwyn, and wasn't scared. Now she wants to ride more. I'm plotting already.
Friend's child
Then I had a lesson the next week with Cortney and Jim. Cortney brought her 'baby' Reign. I worked on applying the stretch to really establishing Gwyn being in contact and not throwing it away or holding it too tightly. Apparently I went too far in the opposite direction from no contact to too much.
Gwyn is dubious, I just got off but the lesson wasn't over...
Demonstrating how it's done.
Sunset in Fall City
I can do it too right after Jim rides her.
Gwyn proceeded to be an absolute ass loading onto the trailer and Cortney and I had to chase her around before finally being able to catch her and load her up. Of course once she decided to load, she was fine. This ultimately was a foreboding incident.
I also got new toys.
Over the weekend I was determined to get out and ride. Between a DnD session that I was running being planned at the last minute, to Eric working an extra day on Sunday, I wasn't sure how I would fit it in, but Eric got back early enough that I thought I could fit in a short, local trail ride at Lord Hill.
Goober knows she's in deep shit.
I decided to load in the resting pasture since it would be fully contained. Unfortunately, it's also several acres in size and Gwyn has... become herdbound and is NOT food motivated. She got away from me twice before I even asked her to load, so she's also starting to anticipate my efforts to mitigate her previous running away attempts by twisting and pulling the leadline out of my hands.
I am not happy with her. I need to get gloves. Or a fucking chain over her nose. Either way, she was cantering and trotting across the pasture for between 45-60 minutes. Then once I caught her for good I lunged her ass from the bottom of the field up to the trailer, tied her to the trailer and got my lunge line set for loading and she walked on with no fuss. She arrived sweaty. And then I made her fucking work on those trails. I had no sympathy.
Cars aren't supposed to use this lot. It's got the easiest entry to the park because horses so the humans use it even though they have a dedicated path that just happens to have more elevation change.
It was nice and cool in the forest. There were surprisingly few bugs and no mosquitoes. It has been pretty dry, though I did see some spots of marshy water.
The light had that beautiful, end of summer, evening golden look to it. It was hard to capture on film.
I didn't bring a whip or crop since I wanted Gwyn to walk all the hills and not power up them through the magic of momentum. She was tired and not at all motivated to move forward.
She did seem to move well with the scoot boots on though, which bodes well! This trail is not barefoot friendly.
There was one other rider who left right before I did. I only saw her at the very end. We ended our ride at the same time. No drama getting on to go home. We'll see if the lesson was learned. I was not about to lose that fight of stubbornness.
Also, her dam's influence shone through on this ride. When she was going away from the trailer she minced her way downhill in the scoot boots and I thought for sure something was wrong and the boots were rubbing or something. But once she realized that we were heading back toward the parking lot, she moved out and power walked up and down hills with no issue. Stella used to do the same thing. She'd gimp her way away from home and the moment we would turn around, the head bob would be gone.
I checked her feet all over at the end. No rubs after 4.5 miles. We walked, trotted and cantered. We'll see how it holds up to longer distances. I'm already planning an outing with Cortney on Saturday. Lake Washington Saddle Club has a Wine Prize ride and we are going!
Gwyn says it wasn't fair. I say if we want to move up to 50s, or even just do LDs out here in the PNW, she needs to get over it.
Apparently, one of my big issues is that I'm not seeking out enough contact and pressure on my reins in encouraging Gwyn to reach down and into my hands. I'm not necessarily throwing it away, but I'm certainly not doing her any favors.
I did finally get pictures of the new farm where Gwyn is living. Here is Kaylee. The goat pen is to the left and round pen to the right. That little shack behind the round pen is the community tack storage that I'm not planning on utilizing.
This is timely, as I've just reached the part in the book I'm reading about that exact thing and remembering the feel of what she needs (and what isn't too much, despite what my brain says) is going to require some serious retraining on my part.
Farm managers live in that super sweet RV. I'm pretty sure the clearspan building is where they keep the hay. The hay field in further in the back and the river is behind the tree line. The hills you see are on the other side of the river and are part of Lord Hill Park, which has miles of equestrian and hiking trails.
I don't think I nearly appreciated this book enough when I read it as a teen as I do now that I'm putting lots of pieces together from my own instructor, deKunffy, Swift, Wanless, and several of you bloggers. Or honestly, even when I started taking lessons with Jim. There's been a lot of mental maturing in my approach to riding over the past 8 years.
I had just read the part where if human anatomy was ideal for riding, we'd have long enough arms that our fingers could wrap around the bit. Instead we need reins as extensions of our arms. This isn't the first time I've seen that imagery used. Sally Swift has an illustration of that exact thing in her book Centered Riding. Now that I go and find the section (in the chapter on Hands) I see that she's referencing the quote by deKunffy, who is the author I'm currently reading. Go figure. hahah
The simple shelter Gwyn has in her field. This is the first time I've seen her using it.
The trick for me, of course, is actually taking up that contact and treating my reins as though they are my forearms. I'm so loathe to catch Gwyn in the mouth, that I'm avoiding her mouth. But of course reins aren't forearms. They're flexible little shits that have slack while your forearm, by its nature, is much stiffer but would automatically require your elbows to be the point of give. So I have to remove the slack AND incorporate give.
Right before she decided to be a snot and go gallivanting across her sizable pasture.
However, once I push past my discomfort at holding her mouth, all of a sudden my horse wants to stretch down and into me. In fact, the whole lesson more ended up being me teaching myself how to quickly gather up my reins while keeping even contact and then automatically let her stretch and pick back up.
I brought my GoPro to record the lesson! So I have media
But it was good. Gwyn has a high set neck because of the friesian blood. We fight a lot of anatomy to get her moving where her back is lifted and her head is down. This is where I really appreciate the blogging about TC that Megan does at A Enter Spooking. He's a lot further along, but has the same anatomical challenges. She clicker trained this stretch into him. I'm seeing the value.
My warmup was serpentining on the outer racetrack. Gwyn progressively got looser, her head dropped and her pace slowed and steadied. The last quarter of the track he had me halt at my bend switch point and back a few paces then move forward. Then I moved into the arena and worked on contact.
Jim: I want her nose so low she's plowing the dirt while you ride!
Once I was getting good at keeping things steady at the walk we moved into the trot. It helped to think of holding contact as a bicep curl. My hands tend to be so low that this imagery was enough to bring them where they ought to be with contact, which then had Gwyn stretching
Also note my absolutely straight arms in all of these pictures. *facepalm* I obviously really really need to keep that bicep curl image in mind while riding.
After a lot of trot work, I did some canter work, aiming to ask for the depart while she was relaxed and rounded. Since we were actually asking her to take off with her hind, she barely maintained the canter for even a stride, but she was offering a VERY nice transition each time I asked and that's improvement for sure.
Jim wants me to also analyze how she sounds before, middle and end of the ride. After all the stretchy trotting and walking, her trotting was quieter and smoother. She was moving lighter on her feet and not clomping. In fact, I was able to switch between the clompy trot and the lighter trot just in how I rode her. So more senses to incorporate while riding in self evaluation.
Fantastic stretchy trot on Gwyn's part and beautiful heel first landing too
Here's some quick moments where we are getting the stretch in the walk and trot.
And here's some super rough canter departs. Something to work on and build strength for.
Once the lesson was over I gave her a quick rinse with liniment. I figured it would help ease any muscle aches after doing the big trail ride with all the climbing and then asking for a lot of work being rounded.
Concerned with joggers.
Mount Baker in the sunset on our drive home (I pulled over to take this photo)
This valley is really popular with skydivers and hot air balloons (those two dots to the right of Gwyn's head)
