2016 Year in Review

I have really been enjoying these review posts on everyone else's blog, so I figured I would jump on the bandwagon.

First outside ride

First jump school

We kicked off the year, in January, with typical frozen ground and no riding area. So it started out with indoor flatting rides. The last week or so of January, our outdoor finally thawed enough to ride out there (yay!). We got one simple w/t/c flatwork session outside, and then our first outdoor jump school of the year! It was actually our first real jump school outside ever, since my injury forced a long delay from jumping, and by the time we started, it was too frozen to do anything outside.

With February, came more thawed ground and outside rides, but a very fresh and forward pony. Around this time is when he began to learn he had this fun move called a "buck". I pushed through lots of physical issues and mental blocks and really tried to better myself as a rider, and teach my horse more and more.

In March, we finally figured out that beefy kid here had gotten a topline that outgrew his saddle, and so, being as spoiled as he is, he got a new, super wide, saddle. It solved a lot of the physical issues that caused him to buck, and it gave him a lot more movement in his shoulders. But the mental bucking issue was still there. And my newly regained confidence took a serious beating from his antics.*

*To be fair, he has never once bucked to really try and get me off. So don't get that impression. When he bucks, it is from pure exuberance, or the very occasional pain issue. But he is well cared for so, his bucking usually comes more from exuberance than anything else. Even so though, it scared me, for no real reason, other than my newly regained confidence being so fragile.

When I got Pancho back

For the month of April, I was lucky enough to again have two four-legged kids in my life. Pancho had come back to live with me, and his old owners had reached out to come and ride him and long term hopefully buy him back from me. Also during that month, I tried the hackamore on Charmer for the first time, and he was a huge fan! We still pretty regularly use a hackamore for him on "fun days" or just to switch things up. I also got my first horse trailer during this month (older 4h GN) and learned to drive it.

We finally had our first real outing of the year in May. I was still struggling a lot with any form of speed or high jumps with my confidence. So we just did a groundpoles and a crossrails course. At home, I started trying to build up some confidence again by just consistently playing with my horse every day, in various ways. Some days, we just trotted over poles, or played with little jumps, or worked on our leg yields, and we also introduced a few tricks to Charmer. He was happy to play along, especially with treats involved.

June brought with it some warmer weather, and fun pictures. I had sold Pancho back to his old owner (Jayne), and we had slowly begun warming up to each other and taking pictures here and there. I got some fun body shots of Charmer, and began to really see him turning into a beefy, muscled, sporthorse instead of a leggy racehorse trying to play jumper. We began playing with some jumps in the outdoor and I was trying to push myself and my own confidence. We accomplished a good deal this month and I gained a stronger foothold in returning to the rider I once was.

July was a month of "firsts" for us. We went to our first show at 2' together. It was scattered and wild, but we made it around. A long flapped, black saddle wormed its way into our tack room. My first dressage saddle to own, and his first to wear. And the most exciting thing that happened in July? Lesson. I had taken about a year and a half off of lessons. Due to some personal choices and struggles and disagreements, lessons just had not been a desire or reality for us. But this summer, I had really wanted to change that. And it finally happened. Our trainer is fantastic. Steph sees lots of potential in both of us, and she is strict and means business, but is also lighthearted, funny and enjoyable. Charmer and I both learn a lot out of our rides with Steph. She has been the perfect choice of coach for us, and we plan to ride with her for the foreseeable future.

After our month of firsts came the month of progress. August became a time of really working on a lot of our skills. We took another lesson with Steph, and we put each and every bit of advice into practice at home. There were a lot of long flapped saddle days, mixed with a few days of pinging over stripey poles. We steadily became more of a team, and I was pushing my fears further and further away. This month reminded me why I fight so hard for our partnership.

We kicked off the month of September with a show. We had some of our nicest rounds to date, but they were still full of some pretty obvious flaws. And I just could not bring myself to try the 2'3" or 2'6" classes (which were the heights I got injured at) due to lingering fear, and I was feeling very mixed emotions. Proud of how far we had come, but discouraged about how much further along I wanted to be. Despite all that though, we had some super fun rides at home, focusing on trot poles (Charmer's favorite) and transitions (not Charmer's favorite). 

Sorry about the quality, but I swear it is 3'

October was a fantastic month. I tried new things and challenged myself and my comfort zone, and it brought some great results. First off, I tried to back the pressure off of Charmer and myself, and learn to ride in basics again. So we pulled out a rope halter, and did some work in that. It was incredible. We ended up jumping 3' in a freaking rope halter. I was thrilled by our progress. It wasn't fancy, and we were still a bit of a hot mess, but it changed our partnership a lot. We both let go of control a little bit and learned to trust each other. And then I bought the magic bit. And it really helped us immensely. Once I bought magic bit, we started to work as a team more and more.

I cannot say enough good things about November. The magic bit kept doing its job and suddenly we really became a real partnership. The whole month just felt magical. With the help of our magic bit, we finally did a 2'3" and 2'6" round. (Which you can see some of it here). It wasn't perfect by any means, but we made it, and he was a complete saint and we didn't pull a single rail all day. I just about cried when we came out of the ring. I have never been more proud. We also had our final lesson of the year with Steph. It was cold and windy, so we had a challenging ride, and the lesson pointed out a lot of things we need to work on, but it was the best lesson we have had to date. 

So that bring us here, to December. I haven't logged many rides unfortunately, due to me having bronchitis, and the weather being too cold to even consider doing much of anything. But we have had a few bareback/halter rides. One bridleless ride. And a lot of varying turnout days. I have been taking advantage of the indoor turnout days to really focus on Charmer's ability to listen and pay attention to me. There is a lot of feisty-ness and sass, but he is actually paying attention to me very well. Even when he is "wild" or "crazy", his inside ear never comes off of me. And he is constantly licking and chewing and generally relaxing his whole body. I know this may sound like a crazy natural horsemanship person (I swear I'm not), but I have been fascinated with groundwork affecting your ride, ever since watching a Tik Maynard clinic, back in September. 

Here's to 2017. I am sorry about how crazy long this was, but I really enjoy looking back through the year and seeing where we have come. I've got big plans for this crazy kid and I am so excited to see where we go next year.