Benson, oct 19th

[htrimm08]

well just a quick update, Benson has been moved to another stable, we like it there already! hes settling in well and as soon as it stops raining here we can start riding again! lesson this weekend!

[htrimm08]

do not worry we are still kicking around! The Vet tech program owns me now, I'm lucky I get time to go to the barn!! I only get to ride benny three times a week as I have reuben as well.

our last few rides have been fabulous! hes been really collected and supple to ride, as well as slow, everything has been going really well except that he likes to stick out his right shoulder when we start riding on a circle. Other than that all is well! Im going to try to stick in another lesson this week!

[slidingstop]

well I have time on my hands so I guess I'll start this ole' thing up again..

We're not doing much of anything right now, the arena has been absolute crap so we've just been sticking to trail rides every now and then, lunging and some ground work.

I did however attend two clinics, With Mona back in Nov.. it was our first one and he made quite an impression on everyone there.. at that one we worked on steering excersizes like the clover pattern the goal of this one was to help him learn to bend his body and shoulders correctly as well as teaching him to keep impulsion, when we went home we worked on this a few times and he got the hang of it really fast. we did neck reining excersises at walk and jog she had me let him pick his direction but once he tried to turn one way we would neck rein to the other direction. We also worked on control at the lope on a circle, he did excellent.

We did a clinic with Holly the beginning of Feb and I could not have expected better from him, hes grown to be quite confident from the timid baby he used to be. This one we literally loaded him up, unloaded, had our ride, loaded again and went home, he didn't even bat an eyelash. I was expecting him to be a bit of a bronc, especially since I haven't ridden him at all in like two months but he proved me wrong.

At this clinic we did exersises for turn on the haunches and balancing, this included simply trotting him on a small circle and whenever he would try to lean and come inside our circle I would push him back out. He eventually understood that he wasn't supposed to do this. Then once he got the hang of that I had to prepare to ask for a clean turn on the haunch while trotting the circle by sitting deep, using my outside leg, blocking with my outside rein and guiding with the other.

Holly stressed on the importance of horses response to our seat without needing reins, as with reiners you need TOTAL control, bensons always been good in this area but she really helped me pick out the little details and flaws that needed fixing to fine tune him. We did what she called a "wagon wheel" exersize at the walk and trot.. basically I had him go on a circle with absolutely no rein contact and whenever he would veer off the circle in the least bit I would sharply steer him to go directly across the circle and start again on the other side and of course repeat until perfect. We then worked on stops at the walk and jog without reins, having him stop dead in his tracks, if he couldn't do that then I had him back up every time.

Thats about it for our progress.. I'm very excited for this summer.. it will be our first actual show season and there is a lot in store. In April we will be attending another Holly Clinic, followed by another Mona Clinic on May 18th with the first of four CNHP shows the next weekend, Aside from the CNHP shows I'm planning for the Color Classic show, though I'm not sure yet if we will show green or regular classes. at the end of August is the Truro Exhibition followed by Sumac Slide, that is if I feel hes ready for it.

[charismatic]

Might want to Double Check on the Sumac Slide.. I heard on Friday that it may not go..

[slidingstop]

oh really? hmm thats unfortunate.

[charismatic]

Trust me I know.. Im hoping it goes on a smaller scale. SUMAC was our goal for this year..

[slidingstop]

so the sumac slide is no longer going ahead..

the arena has finally dried up a nice bit, its now suitable for riding only that Ben's got two bite wounds directly on his spine behind his withers so I have to wait for those to heal to get back to riding, on another note I've lunged him the past two days, I can't wait to get him fit again! fingers crossed that it doesn't snow anymore. hes also shedding out like a mofawk and rolling in mud every other day, ugh cannot wait for summer.

[charismatic]

Nope.. Only Reining show going this year in NS is Lawerencetown.. And Im forgetting which weekend..

WaS REally hoping SUMAC would go.. Wanted to get at least one NRHA show under our belts this year..

[slidingstop]

rode for the first time since Holly's clinic, didn't do a lot, just some collection and gait transitions, he was sooooo good! I was expecting him to be a bit hot but he wasn't at all, he kept a nice easy jog and his lope felt really good. This makes me soo excited for the summer

love my boy <3

[slidingstop]

Benson has been a very good boy, still just working on collection and speed control, easing him back into a work schedule, he sweats like a little piggy right now and he's barely got any winter coat left. lol .. and I have to say my new bob's custom reiner makes it very enjoyable

I've also been working with him a bit on the english side of things, I've lunged him over some cross rails and he's been doing well, not that I'll be trying jumping any time soon.. I want to get him solid in western first.

Today was the second time riding him in english tack, I want to compete in english pleasure, equitation and HUS at the color classic so he needs to get used to the tack difference and hopefully train him to hold a hunter frame and work on extending his trot. He did very well tonight! he stays much more collected with the contact and i was very pleased.

[slidingstop]

We had two more lessons with Holly today, needs to get it written down before I forget all the stuff we did!

In the morning worked on bending his ribcage and making him supple, aka jogging circles with his head bent to the inside. With this he wanted to break down and let his shoulders fall into the circle because it required him to use muscles in a new way, we did this until he stopped falling in.

Once he got that we moved on to what Danique likes to call "the circle of death" lol. This is really just going on a counter bent circle, which is really hard when you try it the first time around and really awkward because it goes against everything in the basics of ridding. This as well makes him supple and is a great exercise to build strength. We will be doing this one every day! While the first go around was majorly weird and a fail, he caught on quicker than we both expected.

After that we played with having him collect at the jog and lope on the circle, then moved on to turn on the forehand, we kept it simple starting with a couple steps and letting him walk out, up to 5 steps before letting him go in both directions.

In the afternoon we went back to working on steering without reins with the wagon-wheel exercise that we did and the clinic, we started at the jog, alternating between a large and small circle and then moved it up to a lope, again whenever he would veer off I would gather my reins and sharp turn him across the circle and start on the other side, this didn't happen very much though.. hes gotten pretty darn good.

hmm what else.. we worked on sidepassing which went very well and ended off our lesson with stops from jog and lope.. this I think we need much more work on, though Holly insists that we are off to a great start. he stops well but often takes a step or two afterward.. we cure this by backing up harder, however bad the stop is.

Overall an excellent day, Benson was wonderful andd very tired by the end of it lol.

[slidingstop]

Another two lessons with holly to report on!

Yesterday we started off with the bending excersise again, but this time we incooperated roundness into it and once he got warmed up we moved on to working on our rollbacks. There's different ways to go about training for a rollback but holly prefers doing them on a circle because it prevents the horse from becoming bound to a certain area in the arena (like say the rail if you were to do the rollback off it)

We went back to asking for roundness at the lope, this time I'd ask for him to hold it longer now that he has more muscle to do it, then moved on to doing our spins and he was excellent!

[Becca]

Interesting about the rollback on a circle! I was always taught to be on a straight line. One excersise I've been doing is doing kind of a 3/4 circle and going on a 45 degree angle to the wall, asking for the woah and roll back out of it. This really helped rocking cowboy back on his hocks and move that front end over.

[slidingstop]

Yea me too! I previously did them along the rail as a support. With this I would back him up after the stop to rock him back on his hind and then roll back to the outside of the circle

[slidingstop]

It's been a while! Benson has been making good progress, though we had some setbacks in the spring we're now back at it full force.. He's been very good with keeping himself engaged, we're slowly acheving a slower lope. His turns are becoming phenomenal, the last few times we've practiced he didn't take one misstep. We competed at central nova last weekend and he was great, more speedy than usual because of all the horses in the arena with us, but kept his head down and did everything he was supposed to, there we're about 12 riders in each class and out of the 6 classes we went in we placed in three of them.

I'm also excited to announce that he will be going to Travis Smith in the fall to start his training as a Reiner, can't come fast enough!