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Navigator's Progress

47K views 794 replies 16 participants last post by  NavigatorsMom 
#1 Ā·
I thought keeping a journal of what I work on with Nav would be a good way to track our progress and keep in mind that even if we have bad rides, we also have a lot of good going for us. So here we go!

Started our work today by lunging in sidereins. This is something I used to do more frequently last fall/winter, but stopped in the summer. I felt it really helped Navigator figure out how to carry himself so decided to start it up again as a supplement to our riding.

He did very well, reaching forward and pushing from behind. We didn't do too much because I didn't want to tire him out when I was going to ride. During the ride he was very attentive (aside from a small buck when he got excited about seeing the barn cat - he loves cats, silly horse!) and pretty soft, though he did get heavy at times. The main thing I'm working on with him is getting him to carry more weight on his hind end and not lean and pull into the bit.

We did some trot poles and he finally figured out how to place his feet, which was a nice small accomplishment. Afterward I had two very clear moments of trot during which he was definitely lifting his back and had his weight shifted back, and so we ended on that note. I was so happy with him though! It's always hard since we don't take lessons or have a trainer, so I have to do a lot of self-teaching and self-evaluation (when I can get someone to come out and record me). Things are a little slow going but at least they are going forward!

I think for next ride I will again do a bit with the sidereins, and then work on our turns on the haunches to shift his weight back.

Horse Liver Working animal Terrestrial animal Snout
 
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#308 Ā·
After my second lesson of the week I got Nav out for a short ride.

It was already nearly 11 by the time I got on and pretty hot so I didn't want to do too much, but did want to get a decent school in since I'm getting ready to go out of town and won't get to work him for about a week.

We started with lots of lateral work, mostly leg yielding again, but Nav was resistant. He didn't want to step under and over, and just tried to drift through the shoulder. I decided to trot him on a long rein to get him moving and warmed up, tried to do a big trot and small trot, alternately, but when I tried to slow him for the small trot he just kept running and pulled. I had to really used my seat to slow him. And then when we went back to lateral work he just tried to trot off when I put one leg on instead of moving over. Pretty frustrating. We worked through it and had some semi-decent leg yields but not as good as we have had before.

I also wanted to work a bit on his canter. He was really responsive to my forward cues so I decided to try a transition to canter from halt. He surprised me with a big canter forward! I was so surprised that he was able to do a canter from halt, he stepped right into it. And it was so nice and lifted for the first couple of strides after it. We were able to do it to the left, but not to the right, I feel like that was my fault though, I felt crooked and a bit contorted trying to cue him that direction. It was such a cool feeling though, knowing that I've worked with him and brought him along enough to be able to do that. :) Of course, then when we did work on canter, I really had to slow him with my seat, like, big time. He was bearing down quite a lot, and while I could get him to lift a bit and slow on circles, and straight lines resulted in fast, unbalanced and heavy canter. We definitely don't do enough canter so that's something to work on. I also think that the heat was getting to him.

Afterward I hosed him off and trimmed up his mane. The last few summers (or around March really) I have cut Nav's mane down into a mohawk, but this year I decided to let it grow out. It was more than halfway down his neck, so I took a couple inches off of it. Looks nicer now and not so scraggly. I kinda want to do the mohawk again but I didn't want to spend the time on it today.
 
#309 Ā·
Quite disappointed as it looks like photobucket finally caught up to me and has taken all of my pictures down from my journal :(

Anyway, today I rode for the first time in over a week and Nav was surprisingly well behaved! I expected him to be very fresh and wanting to run like the last time I rode him in the open field, but after a short lunge to warm him up (less than 10 minutes) I got on and he was wonderful. Of course, it was way too hot and humid so we kept the ride very short and mostly walked. Need to go out earlier or later in the day I guess.

Also got Nav a cute and sparkly browband (because he obviously needed that...) and tried it today so once I figure out where to post pictures from I'll add one in here.
 
#311 Ā·
@tinyliny yes, they definitely are! I guess not as many people use them anymore as we (on the forum) think. I told my boyfriend about it and his first response was "people still use photobucket?" Still disappointing. I used to make signature banners and other graphics for an old Chronicles of Narnia forum I frequented back in 2008-09 and it is so sad to think now that that entire art/graphic thread is ruined.

I rode on Saturday evening. It was a little humid but not nearly as bad as Friday morning. Evenings are more buggy but the shade and somewhat lower temperatures make up for it. We rode in the field again and Nav seemed to enjoy it. He didn't try taking off or getting over excited about being in the open space so that was nice too. :) We did trot sets, five minutes, then two four minutes, with about two or three minutes of walk in between. It's hard work! I tried to work on two-pointing for some of that but my legs were not happy about that! Nav did really nicely, keeping a pretty consistent pace, not too fast but not lazy, and only tried to break to canter once. By the end he was not huffing and puffing, and cooled down pretty easily, so I'm glad that this wasn't too much work for him. He is in pretty good shape. I have a band concert this evening, so no riding tonight, but probably tomorrow!

In non-horse related news, I've been job searching and applying like crazy but so far have had no luck getting any interviews. I did have a mini phone interview a few days ago, and I felt like it went really well but was told that I would hear back by last Thursday or Friday to set up a real interview... and I never heard back, so I'm not holding on to much hope for that. It's disappointing and frustrating, but I guess everything happens for a reason and the right job will show up when it does. I should be thankful I am at least doing horse lessons and flute lessons, as well as house sitting for an ok income, but I just want to find a real teaching job again. In the meantime I've been doing a lot more art for fun. I recently completed a portrait of my family's dog as a gift for my dad on father's day, and since then I've done another portrait of one of my cats, and want to do one of Nav. As well as just draw in my sketchbook more regularly. I have been considering starting a thread in the art section to share but will have to figure out a better way to link to pictures since photobucket is out. Here is the portrait of Buddy, linked from my tumblr.
 
#312 Ā·
Rode tonight but it was hot and Nav was tired and I wasn't in a great mindset for it. We worked in the arena and it was so hard to keep Nav trotting energetically. Normally I would really get after him and have him moving out but I just wasn't feeling it. Not sure why. We went for a little trail ride after about 15 minutes in the arena, which was nice. We did a little canter out in the field, but then when we came back to walk and cool off and come home the bugs attacked us so it was an itchy ride back. Not a bad ride, just no progress made, not super fun. Hopefully next one will be better.

Nav also needs a trim soon. I was thinking about last summer though, and I am happy to say that this summer Nav has had much healthier feet, so I do feel like I've done a good job with maintaining his hooves this year. He had a little chipping and everything just looks a bit overgrown so I should try to trim in the next couple of days.
 
#313 Ā·
I hate those days!
Nothing particularly bad happens, but you just feel a little off, and don't feel like there was a point!
Happens to me every now and again, luckily they pass!
Sometimes I try to think of my goals for the ride so I go in with a purpose otherwise I am my own worst enemy!
Or just completely go for fun, and trail!
But I feel your pain with the weather! It's always hot and humid here! Can make it very disheartening!

That's so awesome about his feet though!! Knowing all your hard work has paid off!
 
#314 Ā·
@seabiscuit91 yes, it was just kind of a blah ride! Thinking about a specific goal might help next time, will have to consider that. I really wasn't thinking about much of anything as we rode last night.

So, testing out another way to share pictures, let's see if this works...


Seems like it does! Yay! I'm using google photos, which honestly seems like a really good way to do it since my phone automatically backs up all of my photos to the google photo cloud, so I can skip the step of uploading to the site (like I always did with photobucket). Hope this holds up!
 
#315 Ā·
I waited until evening to ride again tonight but it was still way too hot for a serious ride. I decided to take Nav on a trail instead of working in the arena.

We went down the bike path and popped into an empty field to hack around. About halfway down one side I ran into my mentor riding her horse (Nav's half brother). So we walked together, looked at the new fenceline that has just been put in, and chatted. Nav was so happy to be with his brother again, he was just bouncing along! After a bit we both decided to work some, which is where Nav decided to act up a bit. He wanted to follow the other horse and when I made him trot in a different way he just went with his head up trying to look for him. I did manage to get him trotting pretty nicely, and he was pretty forward since we were out in the open. Of course, once I asked for canter he thought it was "buck and scoot" time to try to catch up to the others but that was quickly shut down and we had a couple nice canters that weren't flying off.

It was short but it was nice to ride with someone for once.

 
#316 Ā·
Been a bit busy and had a few days off from riding.

Tonight's ride was good though! It was still hot so kind of short (like 30 min, so basically an extended warm up...). I really focused on keeping Nav straight and upright around turns, since he really likes to lean in, and for myself I tried to focus on really using my core and seat on every downward transition/halt. It felt like a productive ride. We did quite a bit of canter, again, really using my seat to help lift him and prevent him from bearing down, and that seemed to help a lot!

Ended the ride with some lateral work and then a hose off for Nav. Bugs are awful so I tried to keep the ride short since we just had watered down fly spray tonight. I need to stop and get some more tomorrow before I go out to trim his hooves. They are looking pretty grown out right now so I really need to do it, I've waited way too long.
 
#317 Ā·
My ride tonight was like the last one except our canter sucked and was frustrating.

It was still hot when I got to the barn, but less humid than it had been during the day. I got a new fly spray today, espree, and so far I'm not super impressed. I like to use natural or "green" sprays when I can just because I feel better about being around it, potentially breathing some of it in, and putting it on Nav, and it can be hit or miss. I think the Pyranha green is the best green spray I've used, but when I stopped at a local feed store to get some spray they didn't have that... I need to remember who stocks it and just go there next time! Anyway, they had the last one I had used (can't remember the name) which was ok, but saw this one, remembered hearing about it somewhere, and since it was about 6$ less thought I'd give it a try. It smells nice, very citronella-y, but it just didn't seem super effective. Maybe I didn't apply enough, but between spraying him at the barn and then putting him back in his field, I already saw flies landing on him...

Anyway, our ride was "meh". When I got on and we started walking Nav was shuffling along and pretty lazy. I had to really ask him to march forward and not dawdle. Also did some lateral work/turns on the haunches and he responded alright. We picked up trot and again he was a bit lazy. I really pushed him for forward and we did get it a bit. Did a lot of circles and serpentines to get him bending and using himself. We really did have some nice trot moments today, and a square halt from trot which was awesome!

Then I decided to try canter. Well. I'm not sure what the problem was but it just felt rushy and bad. He kept trying to flatten out and run instead of lift up and canter nicely. I felt like I was flopping all over and my balance was off. I really tried to half halt to slow him and lift him but it wasn't a great result.

We ended with more leg yielding (actual leg yielding, not just drifting) and some attempts and sideways steps. Nav was a bit confused, and instead of a straight sideways we sort of did a haunches over and then shoulders over. It's a start I guess!

Hosed him off, gave him some treats and then took him back to his field. Tomorrow I have a lesson with the same girl I taught a few weeks back, so it will be interesting to see how that goes. I'm not in the mindset for it, at the moment, but hopefully I'll be more up for it tomorrow. The lesson horse tends to run away and hide behind other horses whenever someone comes out to get him, and I really don't like dealing with that...
 
#320 Ā·
Thanks, @tinyliny! I actually didn't have to edit that picture too much, upped the contrast and saturation a touch but most of the color is natural! It was a beautiful evening for riding. :)
@PoptartShop, yes, it is so hard to find good fly sprays! Even the toxic chemical ones seem to not work for very long... :P

Well, today started off very early. I am house sitting and so had to get up and take care of the dogs, chickens, and minis before I could get to the barn for the lesson. Of course, the dogs were crazy this morning when I didn't have plenty of time to take care of them! But I was able to head out with a bagel in hand early enough.

Got to the barn and went to get the lesson horse. He has been lame with white line and my mentor has been caring for that and trimming him regularly. I planned on arriving early enough to lunge him before the lesson, and provide time in case he tried to run from me. He surprised me by standing quietly when I walked up to him, and he didn't try to walk off at all! I brought him out of his field and just took him to the next empty one, to lunge him. To the left he was a little off, but not terrible. I figured if that was all we could work through it, and do a lot of walking. However, going to the right he was clearly lame, and going over hard ground (instead of grass) was so hard on him that he began dodging it and even tried to stop and turn the other direction to avoid it. I did not want to work him, in that condition, so I treated his hooves and just put him back with the others.

So, today Nav got to be a lesson horse! He is the next safest horse at the barn, and I didn't want to cancel (especially since my student had already been dropped of at the barn when I got back there) so that is what we did. Nav did nicely for her, although he put her through the same "misbehavior" that he does for every new and inexperienced rider - heavy on the forehand, head down, and plod along. Thankfully that is his only "test" - really not so bad compared to the old ponies and horses I learned on! ;) We mostly stayed on the lunge but I had her do a small dressage pattern at the end. Our main focus was just reviewing - she had not had a lesson in at least 2 weeks - and still working on sitting up. She was able to have some nice transitions from trot to walk and halt, partly because Nav is pretty responsive, and since he was already going pretty slowly it didn't take much to stop him. She is doing alright, still leaning though, and I think she picked up the habit of resting her hands on the withers at the camp she was just at. I had to remind her many times to lift up her hands. Not sure when I'll teach her again, my mentor will be working with her sometimes too. And I don't want Nav to do lessons that often. It is alright when I'm instructing, because I can see what's happening and make corrections, but I wouldn't want to risk doing it too often and have him pick up bad habits.
Here is Nav in action! Blurred for the privacy of my student. He looks super cute in this, I think.


After the lesson I trimmed Nav's back hooves (I'd done the fronts a few days ago) and then decided to do a short bareback hack. I was hot and tired, Nav was too though the lesson was very low stress for him, but I didn't want him to think lazy trot and leaning on the bit was ok, and I wanted his last memory of riding today to be correct. I hopped on and took him down the bike path first, and around and past the field with his old buddies. He was looking for them and whinnied twice. I rode him a little bit in the neighboring field, but he was super hot and running around. It was hard to get him to listen to me because he kept looking for the other horses! I ended up taking him home shortly after that, but went up to ride in the arena for just a minute. He was much more relaxed and well behaved for me there. He gave me some nice trot, as well as a couple half circles of controlled and somewhat light canter. We ended with some halt to trots and then I cooled him out with a walk lap and then hosed him off.


It was a long morning - I got to the barn around 8:15 and left at 12. I'm pretty tired and am taking an easy afternoon now.
 
#322 Ā·
Thank you so much! That painting is mostly semi-dry brush watercolor (I don't know if that's an official thing but that's the best way I can describe it!) with some colored pencil and acrylic paint for small details like whiskers and eye shine. I haven't done much in the way of watercolor, and I'm still pretty uncomfortable doing things like wet on wet.

Here's another portrait I did recently of one of my cats. I exaggerated her eyes a bit, so it's a little stylized and she looks more kitten-ish than she really is (though she's only 2). Tortoiseshell is hard to paint! This one was also watercolor with some colored pencil and acrylic details. :) (and it's not scanned, so sorry about the shadow!)
 
#324 Ā·
Aww that's great Nav did so well with the lesson! :) He is a sweet boy. I understand about not wanting to do it super often, because you definitely need to be there. I would do the same. Have to supervise! Aw, I didn't see the picture it didn't show up? :sad: Can't wait to see it!

I'm sure he enjoyed being hosed off, so hot out! Poor buddy was like 'I NEED MY FRIENDSSSSSSS DON'T TAKE ME AWAAAAY' LOL. :lol: All-in-all I'm glad it was a good day for you guys. :)
 
#325 Ā·
Hmm, that's weird since it shows up for me :-? I hate linking to other places I've posted it, but here it is if you want to see it. It's my deviantart page, which I don't really use much anymore, so there's a lot of much older art too.

I'll also try to post it one more time in this post... it shows for me in the preview. Weird!


We have a heat advisory in our area until Saturday evening, so no riding today, which is fine since I woke up extremely body sore. A day off probably isn't a bad idea!
 
#327 Ā·
Well, once again I've sort of left this for about a week. It's been stupid hot and humid though and I've been way too busy with house/pet sitting - like right now I'm sitting at a house with two dogs, but also babysitting another dog somewhere else, and helping take care of my family's dogs while they're out of town - so not as much time to ride in the early morning or evening as I'd like.

Tonight's ride was uninspired. My heart just didn't feel in it.

I believe part of it was that I had my ap saddle out (a side effect of sitting is that I've been keeping my saddle in my car, and I don't want to risk ruining my dressage saddle by exposing it to extreme heat, so the old ap is in my car instead). It isn't the worst fit, but it definitely isn't good. Plus I am just more used to my dressage saddle and having my legs positioned more down instead of forward.

We did a bit of trot, Nav was forward and actually moving pretty nicely. Canter was ok but he didn't want to come back down, and I had a hard time sitting deep in my saddle to cue him effectively. We also did some walk to canter transitions, and had one really nice and lifted one! But like I said before, I just wasn't feeling it tonight so we ended our ride after just about 20 minutes (maybe less).

Here's one picture of Nav looking awkward and tired (but still cute because of course he is!). I should have gotten him square and put him on a flatter surface for a picture but oh well!


I don't know what the problem was. It was just an off night for riding.
 
#328 Ā·
Got to ride again this morning and it was much better than last time! :) The weather was amazing, mid-80s and low humidity - perfect!

I grabbed Nav from his field and groomed him. Since it was nice and early, the bugs weren't too bad, just a few small flies around. He was pretty clean too, though he had some dried on sweat/salt, probably from the other day when I didn't come see him. Did some belly lifts too, which he responded pretty well to. I decided to bring my dressage saddle out today, just because it's much nicer to ride in, and I've found a place to hold it in the house I'm sitting so I don't have to leave it in my car.

Mounted up and started walking around the arena. I had poles set up in a + so we could do some clover leaf patterns, work with them on a circle, but the spacing was off so they weren't super useful this time. Anyway. We warmed up with some walk on a long rein, Nav was moving out really nicely. I think he felt good today!

We started trotting on a somewhat long rein and just did big circles, and a lot of figure 8. We spent a long time of doing one half of a figure 8, halting at the middle, and then continuing the figure. Really kept Nav thinking, paying attention to me, and flexing both ways. Eventually we changed it up, and after crossing the middle and changing direction, I cued him to canter, which we did halfway around the circle before coming back to trot to change the direction. We had some BEAUTIFUL canter work, I wish I had taped it! He was nice and light and working into the outside rein. The inside rein was slack and he was carrying himself! Of course, it helped that we only were cantering halfway around the circle, he didn't have time to get tired and heavy. Though he did get a little heavy at some points when I let him canter farther around the ring.

After that we did some lateral work. I really wanted to work on haunches in. We can kind of do it traveling left, but to the right we just can't get it! It was frustrating, and Nav started sort of sucking back and getting pokey, so I pushed him out into a big trot on loose rein and he took the bit right down and gave me a nice stretching trot. I don't think he was on the forehand, it felt pretty nice and balanced. So after a lap of that I tried to get a little more haunches in out of him and we got at least a step. I need to figure out if that is something that can be worked from the ground. He steps over for a turn on the forehand nicely but getting him to travel forward with his haunches in is hard!

We ended after that and I sprayed him with fly spray and we did some carrot stretches, and then he had his supplement.

It was such a good ride! I am very happy. :) I got one picture of Nav posing after our ride. His neck and mane look kind of goofy to me on this side (partly because this is the side where his crest flops to a bit, partly because it goes on both sides and is only on the middle of this side), I don't know if I should trim it down a bit more or roach it.
 
#329 Ā·
Today was a pretty good day!

I got out a little later in the morning, started riding about 10:30. It wasn't too hot, somewhere around 77-80, but it was pretty humid, so not totally pleasant but much better than 90s and humid!

I decided to ride with spurs today, just to get a little help with our lateral work. I typically don't use spurs (this is probably the second time this year, if that) but since he's been a little balky with some of our lateral work, I thought it couldn't hurt. Of course, I was super aware of my legs this time, I didn't want to accidentally poke him!

We warmed up at the walk, with some leg yields after I had let him stretch, and I barely had to use any spur to get him stepping under and over. There was still some drift, but not too bad.

Trot was a little rushy and fast today, Nav seemed to really want to go. We did a similar figure 8 exercise like last time, but this time with a large circle and a small one on each side before changing direction with a halt. Nav did nicely, we got some good square halts. Canter was very nice as well.

We started the cantering on the circle, after halting I would trot a couple strides then cue for canter. At first we had nice canter with correct bend, but after a few repetitions he started to anticipate the canter and would just burst into it, counterbent and with inside shoulder bulging in! So I brought him back and really got him bending nicely from a leg yield and then we got the nice canter back.

I took a short video today, wanted to share it. :) This was just our canter both directions. You can see some moments of lightness, I think, but he was getting pretty heavy at this point, and our trots in between felt very rushy and not great. However, one nice thing, we were able to canter from halt! That's at about 5 minutes in. I'm pretty proud of him!


I may be teaching another lesson tomorrow morning, just waiting to hear back from my mentor.
 
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