Update

Well, Rizzie finally foaled last month. Her baby is gorgeous! A dark filly, with one white sock. Rizzie has already taught her how to make silly faces. I was able to be there to help with the foaling and imprinting. I stayed at the barn for three days straight, waiting! What an amazing experience!



Her name is Rising to the Beat and her barn name is Isadora. My trainer thinks she is the nicest, most trainable foal of the bunch. If I were in the market for a foal, I would definitely try to buy her!



But good news! My trainer offered to sell Rizzie to me when I get out of school. I almost decided to buy her this year, after the baby is weaned, but logic told me to wait. So, Rizzie will be bred again for next year, and after baby #2 is weaned, Rizzie will be MINE! I'm so excited! I love that horse!

But I was leading Rizz the other day, and I definitely know what we need to work on this winter... GROUND MANNERS!

Rizzie is about to FOAL!

Rizzie has had the past couple of months off of hard work and lessons, so I haven't had much to write. But my trainer called me up yesterday and said that Rizzie was looking like she was pretty close to foaling within the next few days! At first, we thought she might foal last night, but then my trainer tested her milk and it looks like she might not foal for another day or so. I'm on call in case she starts to show any signs of labor. I can't wait!

Lesson 11/17/07

Today's lesson was amazing! I hadn't ridden Rizzie in two weeks prior to today, but she seems to be one of those horses that does better when she has had some time off.

We worked on an exercise to help keep Rizzie upright and balanced. Marie had first said that it would probably take all winter for her to get a handle on this exercise, but she was doing so well that Marie said it might not take that long after all.

Ok, here's the exercise:

Flower Exercise

We set up five cones at one end of the arena to form a circle. The four outside cones were set up in the corners of the circle and there was one cone in the middle. At the trot, we started out circling one of the outside cones, and then changed direction and circled the middle cone, forming a figure-eight. After circling the middle cone once, we changed direction again and circled the next outside cone. We repeated this for all the cones until Rizzie was upright, balanced, and forward.

After Rizzie was upright, balanced, and forward, we did some canter work. To get into the canter, we continued with the above exercise until she was moving correctly, and then cued the canter as we changed direction coming out of one of the outside cone circles.

Rizzie's canter was amazing! Marie said, "That's a Zeke canter. Out of 10, Zeke has a 9.5 canter. I don't know where this came from! I didn't know Rizzie had that in her! I'm thrilled! You could have done tempi changes in that canter!" What?!?!?!?

I was so happy! Rizzie had bounded into the canter and was forward, but not out of control. I hope that she continues to perform this well for me. I love that horse. I don't want her to be pregnant! We've come so far!

Lesson 10/27/07

It's been a while since my last lesson. I've had a few here and there, but we've mostly been working on the same things.

Today's lesson was a lot of fun. Marie "officially" taught me how to get Rizzie to unlock her poll and stretch down into the bit. I've been doing this for a while now, but I never got official instruction on how to do it. Now, it makes a lot more sense. Lately, I've been feeling like Rizzie is putting her head down, but not using her back or taking hold of the bit. So, today's lesson was definitely needed.

I'm supposed to ride Rizzie like this all the time: lift my inside rein toward my chin (to grab hold of the corner of her mouth) and vibrate it while pushing her shoulder out with my inside leg; then apply my outside leg and rein to straighten her while giving with the inside rein. I have to KEEP CONTACT WITH THE OUTSIDE REIN and KEEP MY LEG ON HER. I think this has been part of my problem lately. Once she puts her head down to "stretch" I give too much and she loses connection.

Our canter work was a bit shaky today. Rizzie was really forward going to the right! She was bucking and running all over the place! Marie had me doing figure eights and cuing the canter during the change in bend. Rizzie would dive into the canter. I found out that my aids have been too intense. Rizzie is now at the point that she can handle a small cue from the seat rather than heavy leg aids.

The good news was that I finally got her canter under control by leg yielding into small circles when she started to run. Marie said that her canter was actually quite nice and forward once she stopped "running."

I love riding this horse. I might be riding Dream, the college of business dean's horse, in the spring when Rizzie foals. While I'm excited for this opportunity, I feel like I've come so far with Rizzie and I don't want to stop with her training. I either hope that Dream will be 100 times more fun to ride than Rizzie, or that Rizzie will not lose all the work that I've put into her until I can ride her again.

Lesson 08/16/07

We started our lesson working on our corners. Rizzie leans into the corners, especially tracking left. My homework is to work on doing a counterbent circle in every corner when she feels like she is leaning. So I have to work on the inside track and Marie said to act like I'm about to counterbend her in each corner and then, if she doesnt pick herself up, to actually counterbend her into a small circle going the opposite direction. This wasn't too hard of an exercise.

We also learned the first steps to the snowman exercise I mentioned from a few weeks ago. Marie didn't like how Rizzie was doing the snowman exercise because she was just getting fast and unbalanced, so we switched it up and now she thinks Rizzie is ready to start it up again.

This time in the snowman exercise, we did a very small figure eight at the transition point between circles. I canter the large circle, and then break to a trot and turn in the OPPOSITE direction to start my small figure eight. We set up two cones to do the figure eight around to help. I have to make sure she bends and gets really supple before asking her to depart into the canter again. I was having trouble bending her to the right for some reason. As soon as I change directions in the figure eight, I have to leg yield her out so she doesnt lean in and then use my outside aids to push her shoulder in before changing directions and repeat. I have to sit back too, and not get too forward because the idea is that she needs to straighten up and stop leaning. Once she's nice and supple, I can ask her to canter by changing directions into the canter like we've been doing and then repeat the exercise. It was hard to feel when she was doing the figure eights nicely. I'll need some practice before I can do this exercise confidently.

Lesson 08/09/07

Today we basically worked on the same exercises as last week. This time, I let Rizzie canter longer once she got a nice, balanced canter. We did about 5 or 6 circles before letting her quit. She's getting stronger now, and can hold a nice canter longer!

On another note, Marie said that her belly is definitely a hay belly. But, I think she is thinning out a little since I started riding her 3 times a week. I'm hoping to get some pictures of her under saddle to see how far she has come along! I know she's come a long way.

I've really formed a strong bond with Rizzie since I started riding her a year ago. I can't believe it's already been a year. I hope that by the time I can afford my own horse, I can buy Rizzie from Marie. Or at least I hope I've formed a bond with another horse. I don't know how much Marie would ask for with Rizzie. She's a really nice horse. I would hope that she would give me a deal on her since I have put in most of her training and I am the only one that has been working with her. I would actually be saving her money by taking her off her hands at this point. Anyway, I've just been daydreaming a lot lately. I'll be going to the barn on Saturday to ride and do chores.

Lesson 08/02/07

It had to be at least 100 degrees out today for my lesson! Just standing outside made you sweat buckets. Needless to say, we rode in the indoor arena.

Rizzie was really good today. She had near-perfect ground manners with the exception of peeing in her stall a couple times, which she knows she's not supposed to do. She's supposed to wait until we get in the arena or are outside!

In my lesson today, we worked on learning to feel what its like for Rizzie to be straight and balanced. Basically, we did the counterbend figure eight at the trot again. The idea was to shift her from shoulder to shoulder, and then change to a true bend. But I had to keep her from falling back onto her inside shoulder when I changed to the true bend, which was the hard part.

Then we worked on setting her up for a nice canter depart. Marie had me do a very small circle using a lot of outside aids and then change direction. As soon as I ask for the change in bend, I had to ask for the canter. It was really hard to not let her fall on that inside shoulder! When she doesn't canter, Marie said I'm supposed to insist that she canters and then bring her back to the trot and try again. The very last time we did this exercise, I asked for a left lead canter and it was beautiful! She literally jumped into the depart and kept going in a nice, forward manner, but I was still in control. Marie kept telling me to make sure I give her her head and let her balance herself or else she will fall back onto the forehand. I rode about a circle and a half with hardly any contact and she stayed perfectly in balance. I can't wait until I can get her to canter like that all the time! It was so much fun!

My homework is to get her to do a nice canter for a circle or so. It is better to have only a circle of a nice canter than twenty circles of a bad canter. I also need to be clearer with my aids. Marie says that I'm actually too light with Rizzie and she has to kind of guess what I'm asking for. I can't wait to go ride her again!