#79 - Woke this morning to Teddy missing

What a dreadful morning I've had. Leaving for work, going to my car I find the front gate wide open. I called out to Teddy and he was nowhere to be seen. I ran around to the hallway paddock and he's not there. He was gone and I freaked right out!

I ran back to the house fumbling with my clothes as I was dressed for work and had heeled shoes on and dress pants that were too big so they were falling down as I ran. All I could think of was getting better shoes and a halter. I jumped in the car and drove up and down my road looking for him but I couldn't find him anywhere.

The road I live on is over 30 kms long, it just changes name along the way as it passes through to Redesdale, but I started in the direction towards Kyneton as this is the way I walk Teddy to the riding centre so he is familiar with it. Nothing. I turned in the other direction and drove a few km but still couldn't find him. In a panic I rang my friend Sam and she was trying to get me to calm down. She woke her baby to get him in the car to come and help me. Sam suggests that I go down driveways or dirt tracks to areas other horses might be. Great suggestion and something I hadn't thought of in my panic.

Again I travel towards Kyneton looking for him but couldn't find him so I head back the other way towards Redesdale. About 1.5 to 2km down the road I drive off to yet another dirt road and about half way down I see him locked in a paddock. I search around trying find access into the paddock while I ring Sam to tell her I have found him and stop her from packing up Mitchell and the float and taking the 25 minute drive to my place. I discover that she has called Deb in Kyneton who in turn called her policewoman friend, both of which where on there way to help me look for Teddy! I'm so grateful I have such good friends! I put a stop to the search and collected my thoughts while standing in the pouring rain.

I find a gate to the paddock and walk over to Teddy who is standing still and miserable. I easily halter him and see a house at the back of the property so lead him over to it. I discover that he is limping badly. I get to the house but it's actually inside the neighbouring property and no-one is home so I lead Teddy back to the car.

As we walk his back leg is stretching out and improving a bit but his is very stiff and the initial move forward is hard for him. At the car I remove his sopping rug and have a look at him for injuries but there are no cuts etc. He is clearly favouring his left hind leg and he reminds me of a footy player whose done a hammy. The poor guy has to then walk the couple of kms home.

It takes ages for us to get home. It's pouring with rain the whole time, I'm leading him down a 80 kph road of which everyone is doing 100 kph and the sides of the road are either covered in waist high grass, flooded, blocked by fallen trees logs, full of ditches and/or eroded into massive uneven corrugated trenches. There was not a single clear area the whole way and I had to stay off the road as it was commuting traffic. No wonder Teddy was injured getting so far in that lot in the dark! And I was surprised that so few people slowed down when approaching a woman on the side of the road in the rain with a limping horse!

The vet just showed so this is to be continued...

#78 - horsey week is leaving me sore

What a full on horse week it has been so far. I took Teddy out around the paddocks riding Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, had a lesson on Dick Wednesday and came home to the farrier today who did an excellent job on continuing with the corrective job on Teddy's feet. My last farrier lost his drivers license, the eejit, so I had to find a new one.

Gerry was very good, not a macho dick or trying to dominate in any way. He shows a lot of natural horsemanship skills, which I personally like, and contrary to popular believe he doesn't only do barefoot trimming, he shoes as well.

Importantly he doesn't have an all or nothing approach. A few of the natural horsemanship people I've met are straight down the line believing that no horse should ever be shod, or for example, their methods of lowering a high head is the only right way of doing it. But if I tried Silvia Scott's way of lowering a head on Teddy I would be guarantees to get a rear! It might work for her but not for me. I believe that there are different strokes for different folks, even the four legged kind. I'm similar to the Cesar Millan style of changing you approach to meet the needs and circumstances of each dog, I believe the same thing goes for horse. I know the Parelli catching game didn't work for me after the first two times, but it works great for others. Teddy simply has a different mind set and outsmarted that game in no time.

With all that being said, I still have to see how Teddy's trims progress before coming to a final conclusion on Gerry, but so far so good.

My rides with Teddy are ever so slowly showing results. The head tossing has improved but we have a long way to go.

My ride with Dick was good but I am finding myself getting frustrated at my poor balance in a standing trot. The longer I stay out of the saddle the further forward I go and I cant feel it when I'm not straight until its too late. The moment I do it well and my mind says "yes!" my feet come out from their position ever so slightly and I move forward. Unfortunately this isn't because of concentration. As explained to me even if it's only a centimetres movement in the leg, the trajectory makes it 2cm at the hips, 3cm at the chest, then toppling forward at the shoulders. When Kim tells me I'm straight I feel like I'm leaning backward and I'm also doing something weird with my left foot or leg that makes me "feel" it all the time. I go through my positioning checks so I know I'm doing each thing right but the fact is it cant be right or I would have better balance.

The rising trot each beat is simple, cantering I feel very balanced, trotting over jump poles and I'm fine, but standing out of the saddle and keeping contact with your thighs, heels down, not using my stomach muscles... well it's a good workout! I could feel every muscle in my legs working today.

I don't know if there is an answer to why this is happening and why I am able to feel my left leg in such a dominate way but it has me thinking that my left leg has to be part of the overall problem. Until I can work it out I will just have to keep trying.

#77 - Teddy is a tosser!

... a head tosser that is!

So to work on this issue I saddled him up and took him around the front in the proper position at a walk. He was confused a bit at the start, waiting to be told to trot on etc but it didn't happen. We spent a good 30 minutes just walking, stopping, turning, serpentine, figure eight and all with the correct aids. I made sure I was spot on with aids and position.

It was beneficial for me as I got to keep a close eye on everything I do and I made sure that I only turned my head and shoulder when asking him to go in any direction. Not the slights move of the arms or hands - and he did well. I still think he has done better when we first started riding but that was when I wasn't sure of exactly what I was asking him for so its really hard to judge.

The other good thing about today was when I was asking him to stop I would move my ring finger back a touch, nothing more, and he would stop.

The head throwing was still there. It improved as we went on, but in the end it was still there even slightly. Maybe in the last 5 minutes he didn't do it, but I could have been concentrating on other things and not noticed it as much. Either way it's definitely something we have to work out before we move forward.

If the weather holds out I will try and work him through this every night or so this week, except on lesson nights. I should be bow legged by the end of it all!

#76 - It feels good to ride

Though my body was aching with a suspected virus and it was hot and windy, getting on Dick today for my lesson was great for the soul.

When I got home Teddy was there to greet me. He was in the gentlest of moods, alert and happy but resting his huge head in my arms for a neck rub while nickering softly. I put my arms right around him and rest my hands on his withers and he stood there contently for as long as I wanted to hug him. I rugged him up and tickled his face and he was relaxed as can be. A perfect horsey moment.

I came in the house exhausted. Throughout my ride today I felt more comfortable in a canter than in a trot but spent 50% of the lesson doing serpentine trotting up one length of the arena then over the jump poles along the other end. The pace was good for me as it helped me feel like I was getting it before moving on, something that isn't always the case. Instead of two beats in the saddle in the transition from diagonals I was required to stay in the raised position and this is something I still find a challenge. I have booked another lesson for Friday to keep the momentum going.

All in all I'm just so grateful for my horse.

#75 - quiet time at the farm

I lost my beloved dog Bohdi yesterday and have been mourning his death. As a result my riding plans went out the window. Teddy and I are having a short break and have spent our time taking off botfly eggs from his legs. Damn Botflies!

I will ride Dick tomorrow if I'm up to it and weather permitting (38 degrees right now).

#74 - Best Ride yet!

I had what I consider to be my best riding lesson to date. I had the patterns working well and had Dick listening to me (more or less).

I spent a lot of time at a trot in diagonals and going over a series of jump poles on the ground, into figure eights then going down a straight trying to remain in a raised position for the length of the straight at the trot, then back over the jump poles again. This demonstrated to me that I have got good muscle strength but I need to work on my core strength and balance. It was too difficult for me to keep the raised position for the length of the straight. I also felt my pelvis was in a good position for the first time and it made a heap of difference to my ride.

The second half of the lesson was spent working on transitions between walk, trot, canter, trot, walk. Dick is funny as he goes from a canter to almost a dead stop but not every time so you have to be paying a lot of attention! Once I had to grab his massive neck to stop me going over his head! Talk about needing balance!

It's interesting to see not only the physical strength but the mental strength required to get all parts of your body operating independently whilst keeping your balance and instructing the horse. Today the hard work paid off but it was mentally tiring. It gives me a new appreciation for dressage riders who make it look so effortless. I can now see why non-riders see good horse riders and think riding is just about learning to sit there while the horse moves underneath you. What people don't realise is just how much is going on all at once. The fact that with English riders you cant even see them giving direction to their horses goes to show the extent of the communication that is going on between the horse and the rider. What it takes to get to that level is serious commitment, discipline and countless hours of work.

I came home and did ground work with Teddy and reviewing all the partnership levels and he's great at all of it. The only thing I noticed was he seemed a bit stand offish today. Maybe he's just having one of those days or he's had enough of me cheating on him with another horse LOL! He is impressive to me still and I love him dearly. I've decided, after some advise from Lisa that on the days I'm not riding him I will start on the harmony levels. I've also got a few strategies up my sleep for Teddy in the saddle. I have high hopes for my Teddy Bear still.

#73 - Help! I have so many questions...

Today I had another riding lesson and it felt like my worse yet. I'm not quite sure what was going on with me but I just didn't feel right (I wasn't sick or anything like that) and this feeling came through in the way I was riding. Stuff that I had learnt in lesson one wasn't happening today and I needed to review simple rising trot stuff as I was too far forward in the saddle. Diagonals went out the window!

Thankfully I did improve and once Kim had me bending my legs back to my bum while sitting in the saddle my leg position improved (yes I needed to use a hand to get them all the way back there - but just at the end LOL!). This altered my centre of gravity and made a dramatic difference to the way I rose in trot and rode overall. I will need to practise this position more.

The cantering at the end of the lesson was fine, Dick (the palomino pictured above) has a very nice rocking horse kind of canter, I will just need to work on the transition out of canter to make it more smooth. I don't find it too difficult on Dick though.

When I got home I saddled Teddy up to practise what I had just learnt and took him to an area I mowed out yesterday specifically for riding purposes as the grass has gone bonkers in the paddocks.

I discovered that although he has had his teeth done he threw his head up and down for a good 30 minutes. This is probably the worst he has ever done it. It drove me nuts, particularly as I can't find a reason for it other than him just not wanting to cooperate.

My solution was to persevere, which we did, and after 30 minutes I got off to readjust my stirrups. When I got back on he was much better for reasons I don't understand. This may be because I tried not to hold his head so collected but I cant be sure as when we were trotting he broke into a canter and at that stage my reins were too loose to correct him immediately. I had it all under control but I didn't like the feeling as I couldn't get any messages down the reins until I had gathered them up to the right length.

Also I noticed that Teddy is very fast at all paces. He's a pretty fast walker but nothing too major. He's a very fast trotter and my first few seated paces at a trot felt like I was bouncing like a rubber ball thrown into a confined space. Also, I must admit that his canter is way too fast for me at the moment - almost scarily so. But luckily I never felt like I was going to fall.

• Is it possible to work Teddy through this head throwing?
• Should I get a martingale?
• Will I learn to like the speedy Teddy when I get better at riding?
• Can a horse that has done polo learn to slow down?
• Are there any special techniques to teach a horse to slow his pace? and what are they?
• Can I learn what I need to learn as a rider and teach Teddy what he needs to learn at the same time? I need to keep in mind that I want him for trail riding.
• When I first got Teddy he had a neck problem that I believe we successfully treated and the woman who treated him said it was due to being in a frame all the time. If this is the case should I not be holding his head in like is required for dressage? It did seem to make a difference. If so, where to from here?
• Above is a photo of his saddle cloth from today and the sweat pattern on it. I was told that if the sweat pattern is not even the saddle doesn't fit properly. This looks even to me but there are some dry patches. Does this count as being even?
• If not I have a foam saddle riser, should I be using it?

Anyone's knowledgeable advise would be welcomes. Thanks