Bingo Improves--Slowly

When I arrived at Debbie’s barn her daughter, Sam, was hosing down a TALL chestnut mare’s left hock.  Another mare had kicked her there during turnout, and it was swelling.  When Debbie’s granddaughter led Bingo to me, I had her tie him up several stalls down from the wash stalls because the mare was not happy at all about being hosed.  Then Sam had to get Debbie’s help because the mare refused, refused, and refused again to take her medicine.  So I had to start…

Winter Tries to Return

This week was full of physical soreness for me, and changing weather for the horses. 

When I arrived at Debbie’s stable Wednesday morning for my lesson I told Debbie that I was not up to much activity.  That suited Debbie just fine; she had to give her soon to be endurance horse, the Arab gelding Tercel, another ride before her first formal long distance ride to get him used to his new endurance bridle and breastplate.  She also wanted my opinion on how…

Bingo Tells Me That I Am Just Not Steady Enough    

Wednesday morning was beautiful, cool enough so I could wear my Back on Track back and neck wraps and warm enough that I could wear my spring riding tights and just a light jacket against the remaining morning chill.  The sun was shining, the breeze was balmy, and the horses were happily soaking up the sun.

I did not use the BOT hock boots, since Bingo had made painfully clear that he really does not like them.  Of course,…

A Different Type of Stirrup Leather

This week was so much better for me; I got to ride three times on three different horses!  The weather cooperated as far as precipitation, though there was a cold North wind each morning.  At least it was above freezing all three mornings, a big improvement over last week.

My riding teacher, Debbie, has been making me work on my lower leg more as I have been adapting to my latest saddle, the Pegasus Butterfly saddle.  Due to this saddle’s…

Bitter Cold and Warmer Rains Interfere With My Riding

My apologies for missing three weeks of blogging.  What is there to say--lows in the 20’s F, and often rain on the days that were warm enough for my scheduled lessons.  It is hopefully the last gasp of winter.  I do take comfort with the idea that several nights in the low 20’s F after weeks of warm, spring like weather may kill many fly larvae, reducing the plague of flies that come to the Southern states during the spring or…

Riding the Horse That is Brought out for You    

When I started riding in 1957, there was a different culture around in the riding lesson world.  Stables that gave riding lessons did not have perfectly conformed or perfectly trained horses.  There were several reasons for that.  One reason was cost, perfectly conformed and trained horses have always been EXPENSIVE animals and no riding stable wasted these rare animals in a lesson program with ever changing riders of various abilities…

Sitting Up Straight Takes a Lot of Effort

Ever since I started using the Equicube for one to four minutes a week, I have been tired.  The rest of the time, I try to replicate the spinal alignment I get from using the Equicube, both on horseback and just walking around on my own two feet.  I have to retrain my body how to stand, sit on horseback, move with the horse, and how to walk on my own feet while keeping my spine straighter and my face vertical.  I get some muscle aches too, in…

Progress in Fixing my Slouching Back

When I started working a lot on my two-point in my new saddle I improved BUT my back muscles started hurting while I did it.  After working religiously on my two-point position for five months my back muscles still hurt every time I get up in the two-point position.  Obviously, I have to do something to strengthen these muscles but I could not figure anything out that worked within the limits caused by my Multiple Sclerosis, especially the…

I Prove that I am not a Wimp

Yesterday morning it was above in the low 40’s F, thick clouds, and with a brisk north breeze/wind.  It was cold and raw, and when Darryl put Mia in the wash stall, she looked at me pointedly and I put her BOT butt blanket over her back.  Then I rushed to groom her head, ears and mane, and I put her BOT poll cap on.  Finally, Mia stopped giving me emphatic LOOKS with slightly unhappy eyes, she was just warm enough where she ached so she could relax and…

Another Set of Eyes

When I got to the barn on Wednesday, Debbie’s daughter, Sam, told me Debbie was sick, but that she would be glad to give me a lesson.  Since a fresh set of eyes can often see things that become “normal” to my usual teacher I was happy to take her up on her offer (after checking to see that giving me a lesson would not put her behind for her other work at the stable.)  As we groomed Bingo, I was able to tell her some problems I had noticed when the little girls…

Two-Point Makes Me TIRED!

Most of the past two weeks I have been really, really tired.  This started when I finally got my whole seat out of the saddle when I went into two-point.  First the muscles on the front of my thighs started burning, and I stood it for as long as I could.  Ever since I bought my new saddle I have had fewer problems getting up into two-point (I no longer have to hoist myself up) and I have had no problems sinking down on the horse’s back (I often plopped…

Increasing My Stability in the Saddle    

When I got my new Pegasus Butterfly jumping saddle, I noticed that the saddle leather was more slippery than the leather in my old Stubben and Crosby saddles.  My riding teacher, Debbie, started getting after me more about the position of my lower legs.  Where before, when I was riding in the Stubben or Crosby saddles, she was pretty much content with the stability of my lower leg, she changed to correcting my lower leg several times each…

I am Riding Mia Again!

When I stopped riding Mia three months ago, she was not pleased with the way that my new saddle and pad combination was working on her back.  She “muttered” under her breath that she was too old to put up with such shenanigans, that the shifting saddle was just TOO IRRITATING, and that she would appreciate me not riding her until I figured out how to keep the saddle stable.  So I worked on figuring out how to stabilize the saddle on Bingo and Cider, and when I…

Retraining a Less Than Ideal Horse in a Riding School

Winter has arrived here in NC, and due to the cold, or the rain, I’ve been able to ride only twice since my last post, both times on Bingo.

Debbie had to start using Bingo with other riders because she had run out of other horses to mount her students.  She actually sort of apologized to me for putting other people up on him while I retrain him but I just shrugged it off, he is a horse at a riding school, of course other…

Maybe I Finally Got the Shims Right with Bingo

This week I finally came to the realization that, at least on horses with the croup high &/or sway back conformation, the key to getting my new Pegasus Butterfly saddle working correctly, is to shim my pad correctly.  I also established that when I made my stirrup leathers uneven (to reflect that my right leg is shorter than my left leg), my seat stays centered in the saddle without much extra work on my part.

Last Sunday I…

Is My Right Leg Shorter Than My Left Leg?    

Last Sunday, for my ride on Cider using my new Pegasus Butterfly saddle, I added both the ¼” and 3/16” bridging shims to my Contender II BOT/ThinLine pad.  This made the pad thicker, which meant Shannon had trouble getting Cider’s string girth to the bottom hole of the billet straps.  If we had used any girth but a mohair string girth we would have been in real trouble, but since the string girth has some stretch to it Shannon finally got…

I May Have Found a Partial Solution    

In my last blog, I revealed my latest problems with my riding.  Since I could not get myself satisfactorily centered in my new Pegasus Butterly saddle, I blamed the whole problem on my MS messing up my proprioceptive system.  But then I thought further on my problem, and I came up with the idea that the shims in the Pegasus pad may not have worked satisfactorily in filling up Bingo’s (and Mia’s) sway back or in ameliorating Cider‘s…

I Developed a New Problem with my Riding    

You would think that with over 45 years experience as a rider, that I would never come up with a new, seemingly unsolvable problem.  However, with my Multiple Sclerosis, plus my horrible misadventure with a new MS drug, that is exactly what happened to me.

I started shifting my whole body to the left.

As you know I bought a new saddle, the Pegasus Butterfly Claudia jumping saddle.  I love this saddle, I can get my seat really…

How I Conduct a Training Session at the Walk    

Since I am now in transition from no medicine for my Multiple Sclerosis to re-starting the only medicine that has ever controlled my MS, my body is changing daily.  This means that there are days when I only walk when I ride a horse.  There were times, when I was younger, when I would have been terribly bored just walking around the ring, keeping on the rail and going around in pointless circles, and accomplishing…

I Start Riding Bingo More    

During my lesson on Bingo on Wednesday, he did fine until we were trotting around, when he did a twisting evasion so he would not have to trot at a particular place at the rail.  He had caused another rider a problem at the same place during another lesson (by breaking into a canter), so Debbie went to that spot, dug down, and concluded that she would have to have the base of the ring repaired at that place.  Bingo was obviously trying to tell everyone…