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Thank you to everyone who takes time out of their day to read this blog.  I'm far from the best writer (actually, I sit far too close to the bottom of quality writing for my own personal comfort, but changing that requires valuable time I do not have) and a rather infrequent and sporadic poster, but I enjoy keeping this training record up.  Okay, now onto the post:

PMS, also known as Pissy Mare Syndrome.  Best acronym ever, if you ask me.  Anyhow, I know I mentioned in passing that Cadence and I had had a rather interesting ride the other day.  When I got to the barn, she was very calm and happy; a bit of a rarity in her case!  (The calm, that is) So I tacked up, dragged out some jumps, and hopped on.  Under saddle however, she was grabby, pushy, and grumpy.  All she wanted to do was run, so I hopped off, removed the tack, and let her blast around for a minute.  Once she was content again, I hopped back on.  I think this is where I made the mistake.  I had the same horse as before, but I pushed through it, and continued on with my plan.  Bad decision.  She just plowed at all the jumps, grabbing about two strides out and getting in deep as a result.  Gahh!  I though we'd quit that.  Since Trying to tug my reins back wasn't working, I brougnt her back to trot a few strides out from the jump, and we worked on that for a while.

Next ride, I hopped on her bareback and we went through our normal dressage school routine.  We had the same issues, but I was (for the most part) able to correct them more effectively.  I believe I have a lesson tonight, so hopefully Cadence won't be in heat anymore.  Actually, I wouldn't mind if she were still in heat.  I really want to show my coach the issues she gets, and work out the most effective way to correct them.

I don't know if any of you read K's blog, but if you do then you'll know about her "methods" and how she's helped her mare Lilo overcome some of her issues, and truly grow into herself.  She's inspired me to take a closer look at some of the things I do (and more importantly, HOW I do them) and recently I've been doing a little re-evaluation.  The process of learning is always a hard one.  I just hope I make the right choices here...

Oh, and I have a few videos that'll be ready soon.  Stay tuned!

What Cadence and I have been up to:

1) We discovered that Cadence has not quite come straight yet.  She used to pop her head up for a minute in her upwards and downwards transitions; something that I'd ignored since those transitions had been so difficult anyway, but when I requested she stay round all hell broke loose.   From there some further digging around was done and we (my coach and I) noticed that there were still some unresolved issues there that had just been neatly covered up.  Glad we unearthed them, but thus far the road to correcting them's been... challenging shall we say.

2) Kaitlin, Cadence's old owner, rode her for me while I was away at a cousin's wedding.  She even got to take her XC, where Cadence was a superstar with everything, but the ditch.

3) Cadence has been ground tying superbly!  She much prefers it to cross ties, so while she's still not quite at ground tying perfection, I'm not complaining.

4) We had an... interesting... ride that I'll be sure to post about when I have time.

In Loving Memory: Gogo Fatale

For anybody who reads this blog and doesn't happen to read Andrea's, Andrea has made the tough decision to put down her amazing little mare Gogo.  Please go give her your love, and show her we care.

Hop Skip & a Jump

Cadence did her first bounce on Saturday.  She was stellar, and didn't just hop over the whole line like I feared she might.  Good mare!  She still likes to grab a bit about 3 strides out from the jump.  Its fine so long as she gets a good distance, but far too often she just gets in deep or has to go long.  She's getting better though.  I leave tomorrow at 7 to go out west for my cousins wedding (we were supposed to leave at 7:30pm tonight, but a bird flew into the plane and broke it so the plane's grounded for the next 4 days) so Cadence's old owner/breeder (KAitlin) is going to ride her and hopefully take her out xc this weekend.  I'm so excited for the both of 'em.

What I've Been Up To:

I apologize for being an awful blogger.  I know, I suck. Its been one day shy of two weeks, so here's whats transpired... or at the very least, the highlights of it:
XC school:
Took the long way there (byaccident) and started out late, so we started with a slightly larger jump:

But then we relaxed a little:

We succesfully conquered both banks and water like old pros!  Her two biggest fears.  At the end, we strung together a course, and popped over that sans incident, water, banks, and all!  Go Mare!

In other news, Launa jumped (well, hopped) for the first time the other day.  She treated it like an old pro; I was very impressed.  It was caught on camera, so I hope to get the video up soon.  After my lesson on Sat, I hopped on my coach's greenie, Z, and rode her too.  She's a totally different horse from the one I rode last winter.  She's pretty solid in her first level work, and her canter extensions are gorgeous.  Like all four feet off the ground, and about a foot in the air gorgeous.  My legs hurt after though :)

Cadence has a dressage lesson tonight, so I'll try to be good and post about it tomorrow.