The other week Legacy had her first ever pole work lesson. Since I first got her she has come along way with working in the school with others. The first time we went into the school with another horse she thought the main aim was to race this horse. At this point I wasn't even working her, she was just standing in the corner trying to get her used to others in the school as I didn't know what she'd be like. Thankfully the other horse wasn't far off finishing in the school when we went in so I could just manage to keep Legacy calm enough for the others to finish and leave. 
When my mum got Cloudy she had no choice but to get used to working with others in the arena. When she would first go in with Cloudy she would get a little excited but it's something she got used to and is know completely fine with. Although I do feel she uses him as a distraction when she doesn't want to work and does her planting. 

As I've been having my weekly lessons on Legacy and we've been doing poles recently when the instructor had an idea of doing some group pole work lessons I thought this would be great for Legacy. 

There's a few reasons why I thought it would benefit her:
- She will learn to stop and start work without stopping meaning finishing.
- She will learn to have to work while others are around without getting distracted

This was the pole set up for the lesson, the poles on the left were set up as walk poles in the beginning then changed to a trotting distance further in the lesson. The pole in the middle was a small half pole which was used for one person at a time to do figures of 8 over to help supple up the horse. The poles on the right in the fan where first set up at a walk distance when changed to a trotting distance. The session first started out walking over the 2 sets of the poles to warm the horses up. After this one horse would go onto the middle pole. After doing this for a while a set of the poles were changed from walk to trot distance and we where then working in trot and walk. The fan of poles was then changed to trot as well so we were constantly working in trot. After that the exercise changed where a jump wing was put half way through the poles so when approaching the fan we had to choose if we were going over the wider part of the poles or narrower part. After that all the horses stood in the middle of the arena while they had their own turn going over the poles on their own, the other 2 horses did some canter work around the poles, Legacy just kept to trot. 

Over all Legacy wasn't too bad working with the other horses in the arena. She was a little pent up at the beginning playing up when I was walking her over the poles. I feel this was due to her not being worked for over a week rather than being in the arena with others. There was a couple of times where I did feel like I wanted to get off and give up on the group lesson with her, but after a little perseverance she calmed down and I stayed on and had the lesson. She worked well with the other horses and the only problems we had was that she was a bit stiff and was a bit awkward to get turning. There was a couple of times where she wanted to stop working and planted but after a little hit with the reins she was away working again. I'm really happy with the way she worked in this lesson and hopefully she'll keep it up when I school on my own or with my mum.

The Trams Lines Exercise

Yes those lines in the image are poles, it was the best I could work up after forgetting to take a picture of the actual poles. Although this is something I might try doing in the future with pole work posts, then add in a picture of the actual poles too. If it came up to a more complicated exercise to explain I will be able to add in arrows etc to show which way we went.

What we did with the poles:

Throughout a circle that took up half of the arena we set out 3 pairs of poles. One in the middle of the arena (orange),  one by the entrance gate (blue) and the other in between them too (green). 

The exercise was to then go through the poles and around In a circle or oval depending on which two sets of poles we were going through. In this lesson I hadn't done any work with Legacy since the lesson the week before so on the rare occasion she was a little lively (she can normally go awhile without work and be fine when you get back on.) this toyed with my confidence a little and I'm going to be honest there was a few times I was ready to throw the towel in and say I wanted to get off.

Thankfully I had put my big girl breeches on that day and I fought through it. 

Before using the 2 outer sets of poles we did a few exercises between the blue and green sets of poles. At this point I was fine confidence wise with Legacy. 

Some of the exercises we did were:

- Go through the blue set of poles and then through the green set.

- Go through the blue set of poles and either go on the a inside or the outside of the set of green poles.

- Same as above but opposite way around. Going through the green set and either way around the blue set. 

These exercises were done on both reins. 

After that we started to incorporate the orange set of poles. Were we would do big circles from blue through orange and smaller ones in between of orange and green then blue and green.

It took us pretty much the whole lesson to get a nice rhythmic trot out of Legacy this day as she was very much running in her trot. My Instructor was very determined to get a nice trot out of her before the end of the lesson and to end the lesson on a nice trot aswell.

When we started to incorporate the orange poles was when Legacy started to heat up a little. I hadn't been this far down in the arena with her for a while as we'd been working in the top quarter to half in 20m circles and on a square/rectange that way I could always have a good amount of control of her.

The control when she starts to heat up is definitely a communication error rather than her needing another bit, something not fitting correctly, her not being happy etc. As when she does heat up my first Instinct is to stiffen and tense up and pull back on the reins slightly. Now I know that both of these are something I need to work on. In terms of the pulling on the reins this is also something we worked on in the lesson as the instructor told me to try intermittently slightly pull on each rein and that if she doesn't go off on me to send her into the arena fence a little by turning her head. I did manage to find some control of her by trying these out and maybe we'll get there when I stop stiffening up. 

The Funnel Exercise

During my last lesson on Legacy we used poles to switch it up a little. Although I pretty much understood what was wanted of us after a tester warm up round. It took me a while to translate it over to Legacy. 

What we did with the poles;

On a 20 circle I would either go on the inside, over or on the outside of the fan of poles. Then on the set of 2 poles I would go between the fence and poles, between the 2 poles or on a smaller circle between the fan of poles and the 2 poles. 

I did this exercise in trot on both reins and my instructor would say what she would want us to do with the next set of poles as we finished one set. For example I would go between the gate and the poles and then over the fan of poles. Sometimes she would leave it a little longer so I would have to react fast and get Legacy working quickly and effectively. We struggled with this a little in the beginning because it took a while to get Legacy into a nice rhythm, she would be running along in trot. When she's at this pace I never know to kick her on to keep her going or slow her down to steady her I'm fear she's going to think I'm asking her to canter or if she'll stall on me. I had to try get her into rhythm without showing her I'm worried about what she's going to do. 

Even when you think you've got Legacy working at a good speed you still have to be on the ball and concentrating on her at all times or she will just give up and go back to walk or even just stand there. There was a few times I lost my stirrups and took my concentration off of Legacy to sort these out during the trot and she was back to walk. 

So the stirrup situation is something I'm going to work on, through my position and possibly trying out the cheese grater stirrup grips so help with my losing stirrup problem.

At the end of the lesson we did a little canter on each rein, this is something that Legacy needs to work on a lot as she's not balanced at all, and I don't feel like she's balanced enough to get any benefit out of being cantered on the lunge. So in my sessions with her when I feel like I've got her in a good trot I will ask her for canter but only do a few strides then bring her back and continue doing this as she gains balance. Another thing she needs to learn is that when she comes back down from canter to trot is to keep working and not just die down back to walk.  

I really enjoyed doing this exercise with Legacy and it was nice to get her working over poles. This is something I would do again with her on my individual schooling sessions with her. 

Legacy's Work Boots

This post is about Legacy's work boots, these are the ones I have that work best for her after trying many different types on her. I've found that she can only have a certain type of boot that fits her leg shape. She has to have the type of boots that are structured and not the ones which incorporate the brushing pad into the boot. 

For her overreach boots she has the Roma Fleece Trim Rubber boots. She has these on when she ridden and also when she's out in the field as her legs are close together and she clips herself as she's running around the field. 

For her front brushing boots she has the Mark Todd Collection 2 strap boots. These offer her great protection, and are kept secure on her legs by the double locking velcro system. They have a velcro strap going towards the front then another towards the back to have double security. 

Her back boots are the Roma Pebble Splint Brushing Boots. I first bought these when I first got Legacy as I was going to start putting boots on her before I realised that she actually needed to wear them whenever she's ridden. These have a through a ring and back on itself closure. Over the years the rings have become rusty which I'm really gutted about but they offer Legacy a great amount of protection and I'm not sure I'd be able to find another pair of boots I like so much that will fit her properly. She needs these boots as she's very close behind and kicks herself. When she does this when being ridden she drops and loses her footing until she's regained herself. 

Ideally she needs to have the turnout with the over reach boots on her hinds as she kicks her coronet bands when in the field too. This is something I'm not too sure about trying though as she'd never had brushing boots on her hinds before I got her and it's only very recently gotten safe to put them on without her reacting.

(Yes that's poo on her hind foot, I took the chance to get this picture while she was standing still, unfortunately she'd just stood in the poo.)

Long and low

The main aim of my lessons in the last couple of weeks has been to get Legacy to work long and low and stretching down. In the past she's always had the typical racehorse head. When I ask her to do something she isn't keen on (like working) she will throw her head up, there's even been a few times where I thought she was going to hit me.

There has been a few times where I've got her working in a happy rhythm on the right rein on a 20m circle where she's started to stretch down before.

Since having my last lesson I've also started to think that I've been stopping her to allow to stretch down and drop her head by keeping her on short reins due to her running off when I've ask for trot before. Although once we've gathered a nice rhythm and I've been comfortable I have allowed her to work with long reins.

From what I've seen on the lunge she also seems to get into a rhythm much quicker on there and is willing to drop her head down. I'm not one for using different type of lunge accessories and gadgets, I'd rather her learn and work properly the natural way. I don't mind if that takes us much longer to get to, I'd rather the outline come naturally. 

In my last couple of lessons she's been working well with teaching her to stretch down, and the small set back we've had is me trusting her enough to ask her for trot on a long rein and her not running off with me. I'm fully comfortable to trust her about halfway through the lesson to change transition on a long rein when she's warmed up and listening. I'm still struggling to do this at the beginning though. This is something we'll both have to work on in the lessons and other schooling times.

The Horse That Hates No!

I'm really starting to like that beginning half of that blog title, might actually be something I might carry on with. So today's events have again confirmed something I already knew, Legacy hates it when I tell her no. If you haven't gathered from any of my previous blog posts Legacy likes to get her own way and typically will find somewhat of a way to say no I want it this way if I tell her no. 
This is something which we have worked on, on the ground (the post The magic halter) and something she has surprisingly adapted to, but once again like in my previous post ( The horse that hates the school ) she isn't liking listening to me when I'm on her back.

After my last riding session and then lesson after went so well (We're back on track) I got on her to ride with confidence and motivation to get her working which started out well until we had a little hiccup of going the same way around a jump wing as my mum and Cloudy which once stopped she wouldn't turn away. After a little fight I got her out of the way of Cloudy and any crisis was averted until I got her back on the circle working and asked her for trot. She then said no I want to canter and it all went downhill from here. 

I said no to her and she didn't like that which resulting in her taking off with me around the arena diverting jumps and jump wings while I'm still trying to slow her down. I don't think she liked that I was still trying to tell her no at this point as she decided to stop rear upright to which I ended up holding around her neck, come back down for a small buck rear upright again but this time she did a bit of a jump forward as her back feet also left the floor then she went back down and did a bit of a body shake which finally got me off resulting in her throwing me against the arena fence just missing the 50/50 chance of landing on the horse on the other side of the fence in the field next to the arena. And amazingly she didn't come back down to stand on me because I spooked her on the floor. This is all what my mum told me what happened, I have no recollection of what happened from the point of thinking I'm coming off to when I'm back standing up after I've hit the floor.

I'm definitely feeling like it's 2 steps forward and 1 step back with her at the moment. If you weren't reading back when I first started blogging, she did the exact same to throw me off the last time she did it nearly 2 years ago now. This time is doesn't result down to her being in the stable at night and having loads of conditioning food like last time. Unfortunately it's not that easy to fix this time. 
I'm really thinking about getting someone in to sort her out and give her a 2-4 weeks schooling with someone who will show her who's boss and is strong enough to deal with her when she says no.

We're Back On Track...

The last 2 days I've ridden Legacy and I've managed to do more than just sit on her or walk her around in circles on the spot. Yesterday was just your average schooling session in the arena with my mum on Cloudy. I started out the session by trying out some starting suggestions I got over on facebook through the equestrian bloggers group and she was just doing the usual of stopping and throwing her head when she doesn't want to work. 

After feeling inspired from the comments over there I seen a whip on the side of the school and decided to give it another try. I never typically use whips on her as she must've had somewhat of a bad experience with them in the past as whenever you give her a tap on the bum to back up the leg she will try to kick your leg as to say 'get off'. So knowing that I decided to just show her the whip, and it actually worked. I didn't have to hit her with in once, she knew it was there. Each time I felt she was going to slow down I would just show her the whip and she go back to working. There was a few head throws in the beginning but when she got into a rhythm she would work nicely. Even at the end of the session I asked her for a little canter on each rein, which we both have to work on very much as more as ground work before ridden but it was nice to have a little canter on her which we haven't been able to do for about the last 6 months.

In today's lesson she tried to start off a little slow but there was no stopping and no head throwing as usual. In the lesson today we worked on a big 20m circle then smaller ones at certain parts of the bigger circle. This was so we could help Legacy become more supple from her left side on the right rein and so she doesn't flick her back end out on the left rein. As she flicks her back end out on the right rein she's not sure what to do with her back legs as she's turning corners within the circle, she's kicking herself with her back legs which results in her stumbling and then having to correct herself. This now means that she has to wear boots on her back legs. This isn't too much of a major problem as I've gotten her used to having boots on her back legs, she can just try to swipe her legs at times to try and get them off, once the first velcro is done she's fine. This is just something I've got to watch with her. 

Didn't manage to get any pictures from the lesson so I've added these in to break it all up.

The Horse That Hates Schooling...

As a follow up from my previous post the magic halter where I talked about Legacy's manners and her stubbornness. I'm happy to say she is now a dream on the ground, she'll happily walk into her stable even if I stop and then ask her to come in. I've even tried this is a general nylon headcollar with no pressure points and she's a different horse.

Due to the training of this she's had pretty much 2 months off work, just being in the field getting fat and coming in for grooms when Cloudy comes in. We're still not 100% on being on our own in the stable, but again we're making progress with that. 

The other day I decided that enough time off was enough, it's the summer and I wanted to ride while I still could, soon as they come in at night time the amount of riding I can get done is down to my 2 days off and I have to hope the weather is on my side or nothing gets done. 

So I took her down to the arena for a little 15-20 minute school. The first 5 minutes of starting to work she's fine and this is the same every time, there might be the odd time where she's happy to work longer than 5 minutes but it's never any less that this.

After the time she's happy working, it all stops. She's very rarely does anything bad it's mostly she just stops and decides to plant herself there, whenever I try something to get her working it usually results in her throwing her head up as if she's saying no!

I have tried many different ways to get her back working. 

I've tried:

Squeezing her 

Kicking her (although I can't give her a good kick cause she tried to kick my food then)

Using a whip (which she also tries to kick)

Using a whip whop (which doesn't work cause it's too soft)

Circling her one way then trying to walk her forward the other way 

& Using my reins on her like I would the whip whop, this works but only for a step or 2 then we're at it again.

I've tried doing transitions with her in my warm up to get her 'into' working, but that just results in a small fight getting her to move on after asking her to walk. I can get a nice trot out of her after she's warmed up and at times I'll get a little explosion of wanting to canter when I ask for trot, these days I can get her working nice when she's worked through the 'explosions'. I've had to stop cantering her due to her not being balanced in it just yet as I'm trying to get her more balanced and working well in the other paces first but I'm not getting anywhere. 

I just find it so frustrating as all I want to go is get on her and be able to school her and learn new things together, like movements and jumping. 

The head position in the picture blow is how she holds her head when she's first in trot before she relaxes.

She often gets her back check, she has her teeth done yearly and she's recently had a new saddle, I've even tried changing her bit. So I've ruled out all of the physical aspects of any pain or problems. 

If there is anything anyone would suggest I could try to try and work through this please let me know.

 I can't school her out on the road hacking as she is the same on the road, when she doesn't want to move on she won't and this can result in her being in the middle of the road having a moment. So not only does she hate schooling, there's no hacking at the moment either.

"I'm Not Working Today!"

Now the weathers much better I'm getting to ride Legacy much more, and I'm having lessons every other week. I'm trying to ride on my days off from work and after or before depending on what shift I'm doing and she's not enjoying it. 

I've always heard that ex racers are great to have because they love to work, well I definitely got the odd one out and she hates it. She won't hack out on her own due to having separation anxiety and I can't hack out with Cloudy because she plays up in the road when she doesn't want to go. This is why I started up the lessons again, getting her to listen.

When I take her down to the school she may work nicely for 10 minutes, 20 minutes or even just 2 before she decides that she's finished working and will just stop in the middle of what we're doing. Have it be in the middle of a lesson, just warming up or down she will just stop. Now I can't give her a kick to move her on as she's sensitive that and will fling her head up in the air. In my lessons I've now learnt that giving her intermittent squeezes with my right then left foot will make her move but not until she's given me a cow kick out as to say get away trying to kick my leg. 

Recently when riding her I have to know that I'm feeling confident that day to fight with her to get her working properly. Once you fight back with her she will fight back a little but will give up in the end, and at times she she will work lovely after. I'm hoping this is just a phase for her and she will be happy to work soon as she starts to learn the basics more. 

I'm Back! Where I've been.. Quick Update.

Hey guys! Long time no write. 

It's been about 7/8 months since I last updated, but to be honest not much has happened in that time. I think that's why I haven't had the urge to get back blogging until now. I haven't been riding much over that time. I was busy with work throughout the summer then I was finding it was too hot for Legacy when I did have the time to ride on my days off. Then on the other scale of the weather when it wasn't too hot we had the horrible winds and rain where I live. I'm a fair weather rider at the best of times too, although I'm working on that after realising how much time out of proper work Legacy has had. 

I haven't had any confidence to ride Legacy out on the road as at the beginning of last summer she took off cantering on the road with me for no seeable reason, I stayed on but it still affected my confidence on the road with her, she was nappy on the road as it was so adding that on didn't help. Where she is kept for livery the roads get quite busy over the summer and the speed limit is 60. The tourists and most of the locals don't seem to care if there is horses on the roads, they'll come past speeding or beeping their horns if they can't get past. So because of this I can't hack out over the summer resulting in me totally losing my confidence on the road with her. 

This is something I'm working on though, I'm back to having lessons every 2 weeks with her. At the moment we're learning for her to respect me and listen to my legs while out on the roads as when she has her napping moments she's either not going anywhere or prancing a little in the middle of the road, the more I try to push her over out of the way of cars the more she plays up. So this is our main goal for now so I can regain my confidence on her out there. 

One of the other main reasons to why I didn't get to ride much throughout the summer was on one of the windy days we were putting a rug on her in the field, we only did this as she's very good standing there to put a rug on no matter what the weather. Unfortunately on this day the wind caught hold of the rug when we'd only managed to get it half on and it flew over her head. Due to this she spooked and took off around the field, falling over the rug as it came around her front legs. She was very lucky to come out of it without any major injuries, just a couple of grazes and burn marks from the velcro on the rug. What happened that night is something I never want to see again, it was horrifying. 

We're very lucky that she's not scared of putting rugs on in a breeze or rugs at all now. Quite the tough one Legacy is. 

The winter weather hasn't been the best on my 2 days off a week so I haven't had much luck riding there either, but as I mentioned I'm working on riding when the weathers not the best to try and combat the lack of riding for next winter.  

That's just a quick update to where I've been and what's been happening and as you can read, there's not much been on going on. I'm back at blogging now and I'm planning to update and post more frequently now.

I have also updated the pages Legacys feed and I have changed the link of my for sale page to my Preloved page now. 

Light Evenings Can Only Mean One Thing

It's now creeped to that time of year where I can start to ride after work. The evenings now don't get dark until 6 O'Clock. When I do the early shift in work I finish for 4, this gives me 20-30mins to get to the yard and Legacy will be in her stable ready for the night. This is also great for me as I don't have a stressy Legacy to tack up, like she can be when she's on her own.

This time of evening is great to ride on the yard as everyone has been and done their daily riding by this point, which means the school will be free for me.

As Legacy has recently had 2 months off work I'm only doing short schooling sessions with her until she gains some fitness back up, saying that she wasn't full of fitness before. Now's the time to start building her up, for some summer activities hopefully. So the sort time allowed with the darkness is great for me at the moment.

Have you managed to get some late evening riding in now that the evenings are getting lighter and longer?

Our First Dressage Test...

Back in the beginning of the month, myself and Legacy competed in our first dressage competition together and her first overall. As she's been going through retraining over the spring and summer it was her first 'test' as to either she'd calmed down in the arena, around other horses and would listen to me in a different situation. Even days before the show we had times where she was feeling good in herself when she entered the arena and the only thing I could get out of her was a fast canter around the arena when she felt like it. 

So when it came to warm up time on the day and she had to share the arena with a youngster to again had never seen this different setting and had only been in an arena a handful of times I thought I was doomed, holding on for dear life was my only thought. But to much surprise she behaved impeccably from start to finish. Now she isn't even one to stand still while grooming her, it has to be done while she's having her food or eating her hay and depending on the type of hay this isn't enough. She's trying to walk off and see what's happening, many of times I've had to tack her up in circles. This day she stood to be plaited up all her mane and her tale, have a good groom and then be tacked up. (I've must've made a good choice with the hay haha.) 

She was well behaved throughout the test if anything she needed a little more energy throughout it. 

Below I have added in the test score sheet including comments from the judge.

Learning to love to school...

Since finally having a school arena readily available to work Legacy in I find out she pretty much hates being in there and finds watching the clouds go by or the sheep in 2 fields over being herded. Either this would happen or she would jet off into a fast canter/gallop around the school like she was back on a racecourse. 

So after reading the Q & A section about a horse napping in the latest Horse & Rider issue they suggested about loose schooling and showing the school can be a fun place.

Since reading this I've only taken her in the school the once, she wasn't in there for long but she was able to sniff around, eat the grass on the sides of the school and have a roll (collapsing into a roll in the picture) all of these things I don't let her do while in the school. The article suggested letting her do this, making her work a little then giving her a treat for the work, so that's what I did and during that session it was working well. 
Tomorrow hopefully weather depending she will be going in there again, once a week is all I currently have time for at the moment due to not driving which sucks but I'm getting there and will be driving around in my own little car soon, and with spring/summer on their way hopefully I will be able to get some riding sessions in before/after work.

That's all for now, will update on how this is working when I've done it another couple of times.  Have any of you had this problem before? What was your approach and how did you overcome it? The help would be appreciated.

    

Moved Again, For The Final Time.....Hopefully.

So it's happened again and I've moved Legacy. This time she's in one of the best yards in my area with an outdoor school, cross country jumps near by and also a small hack from the beach.
As far as I'm aware she hasn't been in an outdoor school, so this would be her first time working there, as the yard is also a farm there are many different animals such as sheep, cows, pigs and chickens around which she hasn't seen before, this is taking her a little time to get used to.

The first time I rode her in the school there were some sheep around the school, when she seen them she shot to the other half of the arena, the funny thing is the sheep didn't even move. Now being in a new place she has to become used to all these new things, it will take her time but she'll get there.

So far she's been ridden in the school twice, once on her own and once with another. While she was with the other horse I found her very fizzy and wanting to take off, the result I came to with this was that she thought she was back racing and wanted to do nothing but that. I think there was around 3 times where I felt like she was going to take off and jump the school fences out. Thankfully I managed to get control before that happened any of the times. All the joys of re schooling an ex racehorse I suppose.

This was just a quick update on where she is now and now I have a decent place to work with her, hopefully I will be able to achieve what I want with her. Will be back with another post with a feed supplement review within the next 2 weeks.