Being a dressage pony is hard!!

I can't believe how much fun I have been having with Miss Sassypants lately!

We've started back into lessons about a month and a half ago, and I have nothing but exciting, happy things to say about the experience so far. I'm so grateful to have recently met a trainer who has extensive experience training drafts and and can appreciate my sassy girl for who she is. It's hard not to keep your sense of humor about your pony's little 'tude episodes when you have a trainer yelling, "So sassy!! You're just too darn cute when you're mad!" (To the horse, of course. The trainer has much less patience for my 'tude episodes ;)

While Syd has definitely let her freak flag fly on occasion during our lessons, (she has more than once stopped dead in her tracks from a trot to stomp both of her feet in disgust, and has done more than a few little squealing, head shaking temper tantrums at having to trot a circle. Oh the humanity!!),  more often than not you can see just how pleased she is with herself for having accomplished something hard. On top of that, she always leaves the lessons in a mellowed out, peaceful state of mind that only comes from a hard work out.

I am also immensely pleased to say that she decided in the past couple weeks that she is now a cantering pony!! Before we switched her shoes, it was impossible to get her into an extended walk, much less up into a trot. So the fact that she felt good enough to try some cantering all on her own and in the dreaded arena was just incredible. I feel like I have a real horse again! 

Cantering is soooo exhausting!

 Recently, our rides have focused on getting more flexion in the poll, more work on bending, and a lot of lateral work. She overbends tracking left, so I have to focus on keeping her outside shoulder in check, but falls into the circle when she tracks right, so I have to exaggerate the bend and give more space in the outside rein for her to step into. This also means our lateral work has difficulties on the opposite side. It's hard to keep her straight when she has to step right, but she does some absolutely beautiful lateral work on her underbending side. In fact, today during our ride, we successfully did some lovely leg yielding at THE TROT!! down the whole long side of the arena! It was magical! Granted it wasn't perfect by any means, but she didn't trip on herself, she crossed her front feet beautifully, and didn't pop her shoulder out. We're definitely getting there!

We've also been doing a lot of exercises to get her hind end built up more. Lots of transitions, and lots of reminding her to reach her hind legs under her. We've put a really strong emphasis on this for Big Mama because she is so heavy on her forehand, and with bad front feet that are too small for her body anyway, it's a recipe for disaster. So far, we've been making a lot of progress here too! The farrier was out today, and remarked that he could tell we had been doing more work. She has one hind foot that wears unevenly by a pretty significant amount, but after working her the past month and a half, the hind foot is starting to correct itself and not wear so unevenly. So cool!

Couple things we will need to consider in the coming months. She can't keep the heart bar shoe on with the snow, it would be too dangerous. The snow and ice will pack into the shoe and could cause her to strain a tendon or hurt herself in some other, creative pony way. We will need to possibly go to a straight bar with a snow pad, or I will need to keep her in when it snows. On the one hand, she's doing so well, I hate to mess with anything when it has all come together. On the other, I don't want to be scrambling to get the farrier back up to change her shoe in a blizzard...

Also, the never ending dilemma in my head recently... to clip or not to clip?? On the one hand, she's in work now, so she should probably get clipped. Then I would need to be serious about blanketing her. With all her wooly mammoth hair, I never have to worry if she's cold, but I would if I clipped her. On the other hand, she's out in the cold much more often than she would be working. Is it really worth trace clipping her, then smooshing down her nice, warm, poofy coat with a blanket all winter? How much good would that really do? Could I get away with trace clipping her and not blanketing? Ugh, so many questions! I did recently read an article about an endurance rider who never clips, so that gives me hope that it can be done. Guess I just need to mull it over a bit more and do some more research.

Last thing on the consideration list, Previcox. I'm not convinced that it is actually helping, I feel like the shoes did more than the meds. I discussed with the vet, and we put her down to half dosage to see how she does. It's been a couple weeks and the jury's still out. We had one work-out where it took her a solid 20 minutes to get warmed up enough to not be stiff, but all her other rides she has warmed up into a nice trot in about 5 minutes. I think I will give it another couple weeks before I decide to take her off of it altogether or bump her back up to the normal dosage.

So excited about all our progress, and can't wait to see what else the Sassy Pony will be able to do in the coming months!!