2010!! Horsey New Year Resolutions

Solitary Deer Tracks in Snow, Cloquet River December 22 2009

My last ride of 2009 yesterday was a thoughtful one. I pondered the path I would take with my horse through the unknown territory of 2010. I thought about the past year, and consolidated some New Year's Resolutions.

1. Slow Down.
Too often I bring my human time frame to interaction with my horse. Hurry up! I only have an hour. come on come on come on. On to the next thing! What's the matter with you? Come ON you big lunkus!
I believe horses need time to let things settle in their minds. Not to mention, time to turn those big long bodies around and co-ordinate 4 feet in space they often can't see (directly behind them).
When I consciously take a Zen minute and let John just breathe, he is so much quicker. When I give the 1-2-3 prepare-prepare-ask sequence, he is so much more ready to move out. So that's #1 for me. Slow It Down.

2. Spend time with John on the ground. Because John is in many ways an easy horse - quiet, mellow, and trustworthy - I tend to take advantage. As in, a few licks of a curry, slap the saddle on and ride. Get done riding, drag the saddle off, few slaps with a brush and off to the pasture.
Then of course I complain and whine about his ground manners. Well my own manners can be pretty bad when I think about it. He's not a faucet to turn on & off.
With my thoroughbred, who could be more of a spooky dancing handful at times, I did hours of ground work and never really let up on that. He needed the parameters outlined in bright light, in order to relax and work. Well, John deserves some of that too.

3. Keep up with the 3 B's (Buff, Bendy, Bootylicious Regime) and improve overall fitness of us both. Good Lord I ate too many cookies over the past week! And maple pumpkin cheesecake, and pistachio fluff, fruitcake, and bourbon fudge...I could go for some of all this right now.
John has slimmed down a bit over the past month as the temperature drops and he begins to burn his stored fat to keep warm. That doesn't work so well for me somehow har har...but the gym works, and walking works. Since there is almost nothing I can't turn into a shopping opportunity, I've ordered some ice cleats for my boots and so, pretty soon I can't use "Oooh I might slip on the ice!" as an excuse not to walk my dogs.

Who are here shown eating gift-wrap tubes, their sick little addiction:



So those are my horsey 2010 resolutions, only 3 of them so I hope my brain can remember them all.

Happy Trails to you in the New Year! May all your days in the year ahead be filled with light and grace, and may good horses lead you always to beautiful new horizons!

Buff, Bendy, Bootylicious: Gettin' Down To It

Are you interested in equine kinesiology?

Today we really started the winter regimen of training in the indoor to make us both reach the 3-B's by spring.

I was aided in my quest for equine bendy-ness by a set of techniques my friend Laura referred me to on YouTube. This equine body-work specialist gives some great exercises for flexing your horse and basically doing some 'horsey yoga' that will align your horse's major spinal system and stretch the supporting muscles prior to riding. I was hooked right away when I saw that big horse bunch up the abs:



I did all of these exercises with John today prior to riding. Here is my report:

1. Leg lifts and bends: I am afraid of getting my hand stepped on. But he cooperated and his left shoulder is much stiffer than his right. We worked gently at flexing that left foreleg and in several stints, he got looser and more comfortable.

2. Butt massage to get back up: Did not work. John enjoyed the butt massage but he did not raise up and scrunch like the horse in the video. Instead he started eating his lead rope. I have to work on my technique here.

3. Belly scritch and hold w/5 pounds of pressure to get it raised up higher and higher: this progressed over time. At first John did not raise up at all. He is quite a slab-backed horse and that's what this regimen is all about eliminating. As time went on I got some raising and some holding. Again I need to work on this.

4. Tail pull: John LOVED THIS. He braced against the pressure and raised his head up to the heavens in joy. This was a grand success.

5. Carrot stretches: Well logistically these are hard. You need to have a horse who will stand in place and bend extremely back to his hocks. John just prefers to move his hindquarters and pursue the carrot with his food-seeking missile i.e. head. We did make some progress after I buried him in the corner of the arena for this exercise.

After all this I saddled up and rode for 45 minutes of gait, lope, back, circle, rest. I was happy with this session as we got some good quick stops and starts back to full gait, some nice bending, and some nice blowing on John's part.

Returning to my car, I discovered that both my dogs had thrown up on the back seat, for reasons I cannot comprehend. Life always does send us a little message, doesn't it??!