Tag: Pilar

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Want A Pony?

pyllefælder

Spring is here. Man, is spring here. Brushed the equivalent of a shetland pony off Pilar today — and when we were done, I started over and now I have fur enough to knit at least two ponies. Anyone want a pony? You can pick between dirty black and dirty faded black.

A new Icelandic horse arrived at the barn today just as we were entering the outdoors arena. Released into one of the paddocks he trotted around getting his bearings and I could tell right away that Pilar was all hyper and ready to bolt and buck at the first excuse, just waiting for new guy to give her one. She’s just so happy about spring!

We went to the indoors arena instead but two rounds later she suddenly pretended to spook and run bucking up the middle. That’s when I decided that today was lounging day! I’m not up for another big fall this soon, thank you very much.

Win all around, though. Pilar loves ground work and free lounging, and today she mastered the verbal gallop command. I can almost free lounge her by voice now just by sitting on a chair in the middle and calling out the signals!

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Baby Steps, and Baby Steps

Baby steps. I’m still struggling with riding anxiety after my fall, even though my arm and shoulder are almost completely healed now. Actually I’m not certain that my humerus bone has finished growing back together but who cares when you have a titanium spike in there, keeping stuff together, right?

In order to push myself to work through this, I signed on for a one day course in cordeo riding at ridecare — that is, riding with a rope or cord around the horse’s neck rather than a bridle. I already ride bitless, so it’s not that big a step. My old horse, Logan, loved the cordeo, the less stuff on his head the better. To Pilar, however, this is something new.

cordeo1

Baby steps. Pilar has reached the phase in her training where she seeks to put her head down and bend her neck nicely, but she still lacks the big back muscles building up properly. This causes her to drop behind the vertical often in order to briefly rest her neck, even when riding with long reins. We’ll get there.

cordeo2

Baby steps. I’m way too overweight and I’m fully aware that most of my anxiety has to do with the fact that when I hit the ground there’s a hell of a lot of gravity not working with me but against me. I will change this. I will. Sure ain’t easy, though.


cordeo3

Baby steps. As you can see from the pictures, we didn’t get as far as to remove the bridle altogether. Pilar loves to learn, but before I can ride her in the cordeo alone, she needs to get a bit better at picking up signals on the neck. I am going to ride her western style, one handed on long reigns, for a while, to teach her. She is an extremely attentive horse so I’m sure she’ll have this down pat in no time.

2015pilar

Not so baby steps. This is Pilar last year, just a few days after she arrived with us in May. See the difference? She has built up so much muscle over the last ten months. Give me another year and we’ll have a fully armed and operational battle horse.

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Anxiety is no joke

Yesterday marked the first riding lesson for me after my fall and injury. I was terrified. There’s no pussyfooting around it, I was shaking with fear as I got back into the saddle. My body was screaming at me, “Look what happened last time you did this, you idiot!”

Anxiety is no joke. People pay a lot of money to get over their fear of riding, and many never entirely do. Once you’ve taken a bad fall, it’s really hard to convince yourself to jump back into the fire.

 

2016firstride

 

It went well, though. Pilar behaved beautifully and Louise, who has been riding her for me while I was unable, has done a really good job. She bends her neck beautifully and listens to the leg aids far better than three months ago. She did ask me a few times whether she was meant to trot or gallop along with the others, but was totally cool with me asking her to keep it at a walk. I haven’t got an honest muscle left anywhere after sitting on the sofa for three months.

 

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Our friend Joyce got a ride too, and of course Pilar had to show off her very favourite trick with her as well.

And for our last pic of the day, enjoy the black diva herself in the two days of sparse snow we seem to have been granted this winter.

 

2016pilarisneen

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