Connor

[stacey]

I love bareback lessons they are fun and actually help so much!
Glad too hear that your doing good

[heather13]

YAY ponies Lol. You did great with the ladies maria! Hopefully you will be able to get down more often!! ... PS. I WILL be keeping an eye on my dressage saddle.. ahha maybe I should get a lock on it haha

[happilyeverafter]

Sounds like you and COnnor are doing great

I love Misty and Shelby. They are awesome girls. Heather- what dressage saddle did you buy after?!

[maria]

Thanks you guys! Stacey, I agree! They are a nice change, plus it keeps you warm ;D lol! I love him to pieces, and we're actually coming along at a good pace! I think Heather's girls are starting to have a piece of my heart as well

Dec 15, 2008 1:14:50 GMT -3 happilyeverafter said:

what dressage saddle did you buy after?!

A beutifull WAAAAAYYYYYYY comfy kind of one! One that makes me sit to the trot like a freakin' pro! And makes me feel like I could do anything and my seat would be PERFECT!

I wonder if Sue would notice if I switched the saddles..... ;D hehe!!!

[maria]

Well! As a few of you may have heard by now through the grape vine, Connor has been moved to Southern Cross Stables!!! He moved a week ago, but unfortunately it was just before I left for England. I was slightly rotted I was only there the first couple days he was there. I only rode him once before I left, and I was a little nervous, as I haven't actually ridden in Southern's ring before that! Connor was a SUPERSTAR though! They even started up the quads and drove them in and out of the ring, and he didn't bat an eyelash, I was so proud!

Last night was the first night I got to see him since I came home, and I think he had mixed feeling about seeing me, as my presence usually means work to him ;D We were both horribly out of shape, it was embarrassing! But no worries, with the indoor and Sue's HUGE workout plan for the two of us, we'll be back on track in no time! Last night we did 'five and five'. Five sitting and five posting, and worked on 'going somewhere' every step of the way and making him stay forward.

It feels so good to be back working again, and I can't wait to get the two of us back into shape!!!

[Amyy]

Sounds like you guys are doing amazing Maria!
I am coming up soon to look at Bella for a possiable lease! so if that happens maybe we shall see each other!

[maria]

Yay! Sue told me that last night, but I wasn't sure if it was public knowldge yet so I didn't say anything Should be fun! Bella is a big, cudly doll!

[maria]

Wow, talk about needing an update!

So we've gone through a lot since our last update! A few weeks ago Connor and Bella were moved to Katrina's place, Sliding K Ranch, and I have to say, 24 hour turn out is REALLY suiting them both! I've been having some really good rides these last few days, with all the nice weather, plus my week off school ;D

When we first got here, I began working on keeping long and low, and trying to relax, and ride him on a long rein. In my lessons we've been working mostly on me, trying to sorta get my trust and confidence back. I had a few tumbles at Southern that sorta shook me up, however we found out afterwords that my stirrups were three holes uneven, so that may have been a LITTLE bit of the reason Also I would tense up, and clench when I got nervouse, so that translated to him, and so on, and so forth.

HOWEVER, all that is behind us now. We're getting back into the swing of things, and I even cooled of bareback today. I fooled around today, as we've been working on a forward trot, canter transitions, and simple lead changes in these past couple rides. He's been really good, and really happy, and happy horse = happy rider, lol!

[charismatic]

MARIA Congrats on the better rides. When my stirrups are uneven I end up sitting crooked in the saddle. So my hips are uneven and it botches all my stops.. Im going through HECK right now with a Francois Gauthier saddle and Im ready to just go back to riding in a different one..

What exercises are you working on to get long and low?

[maria]

I look back and think to myself, no wonder I was falling off 24/7 and no wonder poor Connor didn't know what I was asking!

We're working on long rein....stuff. I can walk well with it, but I have a tendency to tighten my reins and hold his face a lot when we do other stuff, even in turning. He has a very nice head carriage when I leave him alone, but who would have thought it would be so hard to do just that?! We've been doing shapes to keep him focused, (all on a loose rein) and working on using more my leg then my rein, and of course not twisting in my saddle, or grabbing my inside around turns. Basically using as little possible rein during my rides, w/t/c. And if I do pick up my contact a bit more, to keep them even, and not hold my inside tighter then my outside.

[charismatic]

MARIA That is neat. I have a bad habit of using my inside rein to steer too.. And I ride a really seasoned mare. So it is a bad habit of mine. One thing I find about letting them go or at least that helps myself is to ride "loose" .. and the other thing I find that helps lol is to go ride a different horse every now and again. I used to ride a lot of babies.. So when I hopped on a trained mare one night I was sort of like What the heck?? changing it up every now and again helps.. But it is funny how we think we have to baby them along and help them every step of the way.. lol

[maria]

Ok, well...this definantly needs an update! As you all probably know, I am not leasing Connor anymore, because Sue sold him....to my parents, who gave him to me when I came back from my Bulgaria trip!

It sort of went like this: I got home Monday night, and was ready to go to the barn the next afternoon, to give Con some treats and ride, and see him again, the big reunion! We stopped by Sue's house to say hi, and pick up brushes and tack, since we just moved to Aiden's new place in the Ghouls. I was standing talking to Dave, when my mom pulls out this stall sign, and asks Sue if it's ok. They then ask me to take a look at it, and when I saw who owned him, I went "What? Is this is a joke? I don't believe this. OMG this is real!" Then of course came the tears and hugging and all that.

We got in the car and drove up to the new barn, to see my new horse, and on the way I called Julia M. to tell her the crazy good news! I ran to Con and showed him the sign and he seemed to like it too, lol! Kayla came out to say hi and said "You must be happy to see your boy" And I was like "He really is MY boy now!" And then we were all like, OMG congrats, and all that!

It was probably the best day of my life!

[Erin ♥]

So happy for you!

[Jacqueline Pike]

Congrats. sounds exciting!!! I know exatly how you feel. I leased Rossie for a while and the I got Her as a birthday gift!!! Now you need to fix your sig so it says owned instead of leased!!!!

[maria]

Well, this deserves an HUGE update for sure! A few weeks after I bought Connor I moved him (sadly) from Aiden's barn up to Embarr, and are still there loving the "big barn with the small feeling". I hit some bumps in the road, but after moving him I got some help from Danielle Bartlett. He now has a much calmer mind-set, and knows how to ground tie and a one-rein stop, which is something I think every horse should know and don't know how I dealt without it! That thing has defiantly cut out his major spooks, and has helped me and him both a lot!

Ok, so next couple months were just trying to get my confidence back and get him back to where we were before I left him for the summer to go to Bulgaria. That was going pretty well until just a couple days after christmas....

....which brings us to my accident. That put me out of commission for a solid 3 months, no riding, no driving license, no music, no nothing. That was very hard to deal with. Luckily I got out of my sling just a few weeks before I had my Guelph music exchange trip, thank goodness! That gave me a chance to try and get back up on Connor. We were slowly getting there, just getting in the saddle, walking, and maybe a tiny tiny bit of trot, and it was always on a circle, close to the bottom half of the ring, away from the ''scary'' part of the ring.

Then I went away for my trip, so that was another week and 1/2 without riding, though I did have a nice fight with my uncle's little snotty Arabian! However when I came home and rode today, for the first time I got back, I thought I'd be very shaky, just walking a circle, maybe trotting it, just trying to get a feel back for my seat.

WELL!!! My trainer was having none of that! After I showed Danielle the Guelph riding evaluation form, she promptly picked out 1/2 the things and said we would work on them! Me and Connor ended up pushing the limit. We went around the entire arena (even the scary part!) WITH the doors open! He didn't blink an eye. I wish i had pictures, because he looked like a million bucks trotting around, bending, and tracking up, and everything else. We did a lot of trotting poles (as it was on the evaluation), and even did a little canter at the end!

I was so proud of both myself and him that not only did we manage to get our feet back on the ground after our accident, but at the same time conquered our fears that haunted us even when we were doing well.