Ginger

[Andrea]

sunshines0shadow said:

The only thing today that she had a "problem"(for lack of a better term) with was staying on the rail... she kept "drifting" towards the centre(my thought was that it was probably to go visit Fanjee, any other possibilities?). When she would do this I would just ask her to leg yield back to the rail... and continue until she'd do it again (I would leg yield again)...

Tyra has done the same thing. What I did:
Let her go.
I wanted to see where the hell she wanted to go.
She did circles around herself?
Yeah.

I havn't ridden her much lately, so I don't know if she's still doing this or not. But hopefully tomorrow i'll find out

Sounds like you're doing excellent with Ginger! Don't use too much hooflex! haha

[Suzanne]

I don't think theres any worries about too much hooflex haha, since they're stalled 24/7 in shavings. ;D

[Emily C]

Im not sure why she's doing it, But I know if Red doesn't really want to do much, and Im going to the right ( his bad side ) he'll drift all over the place, and I make him work for it, and leg yeild him back onto the rail.

Im not even sure if I read the problem correctly, Im sick, and sleepy!

[Suzanne]

As Jess said in Fanjee's training log, we did indeed let the horses run around... Ginger was very entertaining She was running around EVERYWHERE bucking and loving her time... unlike Fanjee, Ginger was QUITE the ball of energy... After running around a bit, she went for a couple rolls! Silly girl!

I then took her in and stuck a cooler on her to dry her off (she was a bit sweaty, but was mostly wet due to rolling around in the snoooowwwwww )... When she was dried up, I brushed her and gave her some love and hooflexed her again!

She was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo happy to be outside... Jess took pictures, I will post them up soon!

Thanks for reading

[happilyeverafter]

If she's coming off the rail it could be a number of problems.

One, just a training thing. She just doesnt know how to ride straight. Beauty had this problem x infinite when I started with her. There are a few easy ways to improve this. For starters, you need to constantly be thinking about keeping her moving straight. Always keep your legs on, and try to steer a lot with your legs so she doesnt become dependant on your hand showing her where to go.

Something else that bugs me is why people always ride on the rail (not directed to you personally, jsut a general thing that might help you out). Riding on the rail all the time (when not doing figures, jumping etc) encourages your horse to become dependant on the wall to keep him straight and 'hold him up'. Everyone should try riding like, 6-10 feet off the rail, the entire way around the arena, all the time. It is NOT easy and will be a lot more of a workout (for the rider) then just riding the rail all the time.

When I started doing this with Beauty (thanks to Amy Small who helped me with it!) my legs would be killing me after just 30 minutes of riding...but Beauty improved so quickly it was amazing. Amy wrote me a huge email about this stuff, I can post it if you are interested (I'm pretty sure I still have it).


The other thing it could be is that Ginger is just bored.

Do more figures, more exercises to get her brain going....physical exercise is not enough! Horses are smart animals and need mental stimulation too so make sure you are doing lots of that with her as well!


Good luck- cant wait to see more pictures!

[Suzanne]

pictures are being uploaded in her picture place...

[Suzanne]

So I've been a bad mommy and havent updated this in a few days

The past few days I've been letting Ginger outside to have a little run and be a horse. She seems to really enjoy this(as you can probably see from the pictures that have been posted...). I have also been lunging her (walk, jog, lope) to get her moving. We have been doing a bit of halter work(I do not know much about this stuff so when I say a bit, I mean a LITTLE bit, pm me or post here if you have any advise or tips). From what I know this has been going well!

Yesterday, after her playtime outdoors, I took her in and brushed her, saddled her up, applied our black splint boots, red bell boots, and Shelly helped me by putting our skid boots on. This was the first time I booted her up(it was fun, she looked cute and now we can be sure that she doesnt injure her splints, cornary band, heel bulbs, fetlocks, etc...). I also put on my pretty red spurs (this was also the first time I wore spurs on her since she moved to silverwood), and then we went to the arena!
We did some walking and jogging on the rail, serpentines, figure eights, circles, diagnals, turns...(we were basically going everywhere working on moving off of leg and trying not to get in Fanjee and Jess's way . We did some loping on the rail both directions, leg yielding, side passing, backing, turn on the forehand(attempts, thanks Shelly for helping me , and turn on the haunch. (Not all in that order )
I was really happy with her (undersaddle wise). When we were doing our upper transitions (walk to lope especially) she was doing them really nicely and I was very happy with her for that! Our lope to jog needs a little work, but when I start to take lessons(hopefully soon) I will be able to help Ginger do those transitions better! I think that sums up what we did yesterday...

Then Shelly hopped on for a bit and did some walk, jog, lope, turn on forehand, haunch... etc (maybe she will post what she did, I was watching Jess and attempting to take pictures and watch shelly and Ginger at the same time so I didn't get to see everything...)

Anyway, I think thats it! Pictures to follow soon!

[Suzanne]

the past two days I've been riding Ginger...

today I work on walk/jog on rail as well as everywhere else in the arena...

I also did some backing up, and some turn on forehand and haunch

We did a lot of walk, stop, back up and jog, stop, back up...

Today was a good day (IMO), I need to fix up my riding, I spoke to the owner of the barn today to arrange for lessons so that will hopefully take place soon after exams!

Thanks for reading

[nat]

ginger sounds like shes doing amazing=)

[Suzanne]

Thanks Nat!!

I just got back from the barn a short while ago...

I had her out side She was LOVING it! Galloping around in the snow! silly girl!

After we were done outside, I brought her in and brushed her a bit, then we went in the arena and did some lunging!! walk, jog, lope, both directions! She enjoyed!


Thats our day

[Suzanne]

yesterday, I had Ginger out being lunged:walk, jog both directions. She did very well. We did some speed changes at a jog (from jog to trot to jog to trot...)

After I lunged her, I walked her around a bit on and did some halter work... we did (in hand) walk, jog, stop, pivot, and back up which also went well!

Then I took her in the barn and gave her some loving and brushed her !

That was our day!

[Suzanne]

the past few days, we've been having lunging days together....

working on walk, jog, trot, lope, and stop. Lots of (different) transitions!!

We have been doing some halter work aswell! walk, jog, stop, pivot, back up...

She has been very good lately, hopefully she will get outside soon if the weather is nice and we get up before dark...
We haven done much riding due to exams, but they are soon over so when thats all done then we will get back on track!!

Thanks for reading!

[Michelle]

Sounds like your doing a great job, Suzanne. I can't wait to come visit Eventually... Lol.

[Suzanne]

yayyyyyyyyyyyyy Ginger is going a visitorrrrr!!! Michelle let me know when you are coming(and anyone else who would like to come visit !!

So today I went to see horsie!
Guess what we did!!!!
We...
Had...
A...
LESSON!!!!

It was great I really enjoyed it!! (I don't think Ginger did though! hehe she is pretty lazy)
We started off doing a nice working trot on the rail, trying to keep steady motion...
Then we did some serpentines(at a trot), working on my abilty to judge when it is time to cue the horse to turn... I could see and feel a BIG difference in me and her...
Then we did tight serpentines(at a trot), working on her to turning skills and listening to my cues... at each turn of the serpentine, we did a little circle to get her crossing over in the front and making those turns much nicer!
We then let her walk around a bit to "let her catch her breath"

After that we did some loping... We started off on the rail and then we brought into a smaller "circle"(half the arena, which is kind of more like a rectangle but whatever). After almost running over Darryl a few times (haha, due to my lack of riding ability), we managed to do it a lot better! I was sooooooo happy with the improvement in her.
Then we walked and reversed and loped again! Did the same thing... At first she thought it would be cool to run over the coach(with influence from my poor riding ability!) and in the end we were going along much better!!

Then we walked... and had a chat...
For the last 10 minutes or so of the lesson, we worked on some leg yielding on the rail (head on rail, hind quarters offtrack to the indside) which I was never good at, but we managed and I got help as to how to do it correctly which is always GREAT!!
We had no problems at the left, she was a star! But to the right wasn't so pretty... She did not have the "fluid movement" that she had to the left(probably because of my lack of riding once again!)

That clued up my lesson, I am very glad I had a lesson because IMO it was GREATLY needed for me!!

Darryl said that in my next lesson, I will be riding Ginger for the first half and Denver(her QH gelding) for the second half (the reason for this is so that I can try it on Ginger and begin to work on her and me, but then I can get on Denver to work on me, to make sure I am cueing Ginger properly! )

After I walked her out about 10 minutes, I got off and gave her to mommy, so that mommy could continue walking her out for me, and I went and got Fanjee and lunged her for Jessica!

When she was all cooled out, I took her in the barn, untacked her, brushed her, and loved her and then I put her in her stall. She was quite the tired girl!

Now I know what to work on between now and my next lesson! Hopefully that will go well too!!

Thanks for reading guys!!

[shelly]

So, am I going to be in the next lesson?