Big recap

Ok, long time no post and so much has happened.

First, the cats decided on Chicken Soup for the Cat Lover's Soul, and my wallet thanks them.

Here we go.  I have 4 days to update: last Saturday (Hoppy Day - saddle and lessons), last Sunday (Lisa Day - reuniting with old friends), Saturday (Dentist Day) and Sunday (Ride in Preparation for Next Week's Lesson Day).

Last Saturday - Hoppy Day:

Well, the day came for the saddle customization.  Hoppy took good looks at the saddle on Peanut's back, off Peanut's back, and at just Peanut's back.  She tacked Peanut up at various times, including with no additional padding at all to the saddle (the seat is quite cushiony on its own, to be honest), and had me ride a few steps with it like this, with it like that, and would watch him move, his expression, and run her hand underneath the saddle as I was in it.

After two hours, here's what I learned:

The saddle simply did not have enough lift in the rear.  This is, oddly enough, why people would feel pushed forward in it - not because they actually were, but because they were unconsciously compensating for the saddle falling away in the back.  When I bought the saddle, I was told that it was properly seated when the seat was flat.  No.  It should be like any other dressage saddle, with a distinct low part in the center.

Peanut, as mentioned, is a hard to fit horse.  His back is short, yet he is wide.  Hoppy blames most of my precarious feelings to this: I had relatively tiny little pads supporting a saddle on a broad back that would happily accept much wider padding.  Oh.

Using foam left over from our old soft-sided waterbed (which has been taking up a ton of room around here for years), we created the custom panels.  What is blowing my mind is that we are now only padding the back half of the saddle, with dramatic wedges towards the back.  It is the saddle and the saddle alone in the front.  Also, these new panels are much wider than either the saddle's paneling pouches or the pad's panelling area.  The pad is a fluffy fleece one from Fleeceworks that accepts memory foam panels within.  Still too narrow.

So, I have to create a custom suberpanel to attach to the underside of my saddle containing the new padding.  I am thinking of using old jeans that I have worn out in the saddle - kind of full-circle - but may change that as I want to keep seaming to a minimum.

After the saddle puzzle was laid to rest, Rick and I mounted up (with the foam wedged between my saddle and pad, and hanging out looking all ghetto), and headed out for lessons on the trails with Hoppy walking.

Before we even got to the trails, Hoppy saw what she had always suspected in adjustments - Peanut rolled his ribcage.  He also moved his backend so that it wasn't quite in line.  So, she had me ride almost like I was always asking for a right turn - with my right leg forward and my left leg back so that my left leg could scoot his hind end back in line with the rest of him.

Unfortunately, this was very frustrating.  I never claimed to be a subtle rider, and she would keep asking me if I felt what was going on, especially when it would correct.  No, I couldn't.  I think it was frustrating Hoppy and it frustrates me as I could fix it if only I could feel it and correct it as necessary.

She also had me perch in my saddle to the left to compensate for the rib cage roll.  After I got where she wanted, it came back to me that this was exactly where Leeandra had me sit when I first bought the Fhoenix.

She had me gait a little, and at one point I asked not to as it was downhill.  Hoppy insisted that it was perfectly fine to gait downhill and he could take it.  We just had to find our proper balance to keep him from thumping along on the fore.  She actually had me intentionally greet downhills with gaits, then work on slowing down, speeding up, slowing down, speeding up.

At one point we came out in a field and we used that as our ring.  She had me do circles with Peanut, at any speed (although she preferred faster than a walk), in an attempt to work on straightening out Peanut's body.  I was nervous doing them in the open without fences, but she said that my outside rein was my fence.  She was very happy to see him effortlessly pick up a right lead canter as that would have him engage his weak hind, and was pretty pleased with what we did.  It was a grueling lesson, and ended when my legs just stopped responding and hung there useless.  I had some of my old panic feelings creep up at times, but Hoppy said that was fine.

After my legs died, it was Rick's turn.  I didn't catch much of what was going on, other than her commenting that Peanut needs a little schooling and Rick needs to stop being schooled by Gene.  At a few points he was cantering circles, and I'll be damned if that appy didn't aim straight for us!  At least Peanut just looked at him and didn't panic as Gene would veer away at the last moment.

I really don't know what I got out of the lesson.  I think it was too advanced for me.  I just couldn't feel what I was supposed to feel.  If I could just comprehend what Peanut's body was doing I think it would have been mindblowing, but instead it just seemed like advanced astro-physics when I'm still working on long division.  I feel that if I could just work the equation that I could find the grand unification theory, but it's just out of reach.

Last Sunday - Lisa Day:

Lisa is one of our ex-co-boarders.  We hadn't seen her or her giant Perch Daniel for ages, not since they came across us in a field in Fair Hill, so we decided to go for a visit.

Damn.  Daniel's big.  You forget that kind of thing when you're stuck around wee little arabians for a while.

Daniel's pasture is something like 40 acres, and there are barely any horses on it.  The barn owner allows 3 acres per horse for maximum pasture health, and I think that's awesome.  Very hilly, too, which is good for big percheron butts.

Unfortunately, Daniel is ouchy.  There are murmings of the L-word, laminitis, which I hope are unfounded.  This is his first time coming into the spring on this vast pasture, so maybe the spring sugar is knocking his system around as I bet he was never allotted 3 acres for his own grazing pleasure.  He's not typical founder stance lame, but is a bit hitchy.

We went to the indoor where there were some lessons going on, and met Lisa's barn manager.  She's in her 70s and British, so everything sounds extra correct when coming from her.  None of the horses going around the ring had anything more than bareback pads or a soft saddle, and all were bitless and wore sidepulls.  This is how she does her lessons, and it seemed fabulous.  If I could get Peanut up there and secure a private lesson I think we could go far, and this is the main reason why I am getting a bareback (ok, soft saddle sans stirrups) lesson next Saturday.

Rick talked to her more than I did, as I was hanging out with Daniel and Lisa.  I was going to ride, but since he was ouchy all I did was sit on Daniel and get off, as I never got to ride him before.  That is one big horse.  So very tall (something like 17.2) and so very wide.  I wish I could have gone for a spin of sorts (although I told him no trotting since my post is way rusty), but we didn't want to stress him since something was going on.

Lisa's barn owner knew my instructor, and had nothing bad to say about her which, according to Lisa, is a seal of approval.

After hanging for a bit and getting a tour of the place, we all headed back to our barn so Lisa could see our new digs.  :)

We didn't ride, but we did hike out into Fair Hill so I could show her how close we were to the barn when they came across us on trail.

It was a very nice day!

Saturday - Dentist Day:

Krystin came for our float, but moved it up an hour so she beat us there (we still had to get breakies and get our selves to the barn when she called to tell us she was ahead of schedule).  No big deal, though.

We got our horses, and she started on Peanut first.  He got the very, very minimal dosage of Happy Juice to keep him from throwing his head, and it made him wobbly.  Cheap date!

Peanut's teeth are very hard, as usual, and are in good shape.  I am thinking of moving the floats to fall and she said that he'll be able to go 18 months no problem.

She really concentrated more on his incisors this time than ever before.  She said she's getting quite picky with them as time goes on.  In her line of equine dentistry, the incisors are the first step as you use them to help balance out the TMJ.  Well, actually, the first step is analyzing the skull to see where things should be, then checking the bite/movement, then getting out the files.  All of that is done so quickly, tho.

While standing by the groggy Nutters, I asked if she found that traditional dentists are starting to pick up anything that Natural Balancing does.  She said yes, they are, but it's unfortunate because they are working on the incisors without any real education on it, and sometimes they do a lot of harm that way.  As she worked on Peanut's incisors, to help his bite line up better, I asked if she has cured parrot mouths.  She said yes, she did 3 horses that week who were diagnosed with parrot mouths.  Nope.  One float later using her method and they were fine.  They just needed their TMJ balanced instead of just their hooks filed down.

Gene, unfortunately, was a different story.  I didn't get to see much of it as I shuffled my sleepy horse out to clean his sheath while the cleaning was good (boy was he awake when I was done).  She is going very, very conservatively with his floats, in order to keep as much tooth as possible.  She said it is better to have some pathology in a mouth than no teeth at all, so she's making sure nothing's sharp, that everything's working, and not tidying it up as well as she could be.

I asked if his teeth are older than they should be, and she said yes.  His lower front molars are definitely expired, and all are a little brittle.  This all goes back to the power float we gave him one time at Dr. Shoemaker's.  Not only do power floats do horrible things to the surface part of their teeth, they also can make them more brittle further down which is where we currently are.  We simply didn't know better.

By the way his teeth are aging she says that he had a bit seat at some point in his life.  Not with us!  But, nevertheless, we are dealing with the consequences now.

Stupid power floats.

Stupid bit seats.

Stupid dental neglect.

She will do what she can to preserve as much tooth as she can, but told us to watch for quidding.  I thought that horses did that to cushion sharp teeth, but it turns out that they also do it when their chompers aren't what they were.  Instead of chewing and swallowing everything, they suck the nutrients out of it then spit it out.  She'll be able to walk us through what we need to do once his teeth really degrade.

Gene will be floated again in the fall, to help him into winter.  If all goes well, he will continue to be a yearly float after that.

I really do like Krystin.  She has incredible horse-side manners (snuck in a kiss on Peanut's nose), and her care really is top-notch.  I'm so glad that Dawn referred us to her!

Sunday - Lesson Prep Day:

Well, the Fhoenix is at home in pieces and it was a lovely day for a ride.  I pulled out the soft saddle, after being inspired by Lisa's barn (so many soft saddles in one place!), and saddled up.

I asked while at Lisa's barn whether the soft saddle counted as bareback since it seemed a little like cheating to me, and I was assured that it was just fine.  Keen.

I mounted up and definitely felt the difference.  Peanut didn't seem too impressed, but he never seemed to like that saddle much.  I could tell that I was putting a lot of pressure on his spine until I angled my pelvis a bit, then both Peanut and I were much happier.

I can see how this resembles bareback.  You can feel another world of contact between you and the horse in the Fhoenix compared with a treed saddle, and you can feel another world of contact between you and the horse in the Cashel compared with the Fhoenix.  Once I chilled out and settled in, the ride actually went well.  I'm not about to go off galloping across a field in it yet, but it wasn't bad.

I could feel Peanut respond to every little shift and adjustment that I made, and I think that this will help me understand what he thinks about what I'm doing.  In fact, the oddest part came when I asked him to gait: I could feel his muscles swell on either side of his spine a split second before he sped up and they stayed that way until he fell back to a walk.  Is this a form of collection???  I have no idea.  As I said before, I am not a subtle rider.  All I had to do to get him to speed up was kiss at him, too, which is a new thing.

Those muscles along his back were trippy.  I could feel them pumping as we gaited.  I'll have to ask Denise and/or Hoppy about them.

I was very, very uncertain in the Cashel when I first climbed up, but I felt a lot more comfortable as time went on.  If Peanut is ok with it (will ask Denise if he is showing signs of discomfort), I may let the Fhoenix have a bit of a rest for a while and work on my connection with Peanut through the Cashel.

Lisa's barn manager would be proud.

PS - Peanut's size came up twice this week.  First, Hoppy noted that there are two kinds of TWHs in this world - the narrow, skinny ones and the round, stout ones like Peanut.  Peanut is like a little tank of the TWH world.  At another time, I told one of the boarder's mothers that he is a TWH, and she was amazed that he was so solid.  She never saw such a TWH in her life, they were always so thin and barely muscled.