Hypp-Impressive Bloodlines

HYPP: hyperkalemic periodic paralysis
Impressive, a halter horse, was bred because of his great muscles. Not knowing that his muscular beauty was in fact the problem. After being bred to many, many mares they trace back this disorder to him. It was estimated that more than 55,000 Quarter Horses, Paints, and Appaloosas world-wide bore his pedigree. (http://www.foundationhorses.com/impressive_syndrom.htm) This disorder can be deadly but often causes a muscular twitching that can cause the horse unable to move. This gene is also the dominant gene meaning most of those bred with Impressive in the pedigree will have traces of the disorder in them. With the proper care and diet, horses with the Impressive Syndrom can survive. But still, horses with the gene are being bred and registered.

Rose is a carrier of HYPP. :(

Nutrition

Today I went to help Sam out. So in the meantime, while mucking out stalls, she taught me about nutrition, as far as horses go... Here's what I got:

*First cutting, super rich, goes to cattle
*Alfalfa, stem less nutrition, leaf more healthy
*California gets some of the worst hay
*Grass hay needs supplementing for calcium
*Grass takes super long to grow and can run out in the off season
*2::1 ratio, 2 calcium for every 1 phosphorus??
*Pasture is mostly made up of water
*Pasture horses need supplementing for whatever the soil is lacking
*Pasture horses eat 12hrs a day!
*Grains should be fed only 10% of total diet
*They should also be fed in increments to prevent colic
*Corn-super high in energy

That's mostly it, there's more but it's hard to remember it all, lol.
Good site for nutrition: Equalize Horse Nutrition

Ground Work

So today I did some ground work with Rose, the 2yr old mare, and Shea, the 4yr old gelding. Sam was injured so I was taking over for the day. There were a lot of things about turning out, lunging, and ground work that I didn't know, that I now am still learning. How to hold the whip for different cues, where to stand to stop, slow down, or speed up the horse. For the most part I screwed up everything! Haha! Shea wanted to do everything to please me but neither of us could get it right!! Rose on the other hand is way more forward and did a lot better with me, I think. But after it all we did some tricks with Shea and called it a day.

Crazy Play Day!

So today was an insane day down at the arena! I had a joint lesson with Jordan this evening which meant we got to play a few games. Yippie, right?? Hahaha! These games are a lot harder then you would think on a lazy girl like Mayzee. Jordan's horse, Cash, on the other hand, is quite th opposite. He's a quicky! So we started out with fallow the leader, then leap frog, then red light green light, and then the dollar game!! I won the two competitive games!! Woohoo! (Got to keep the dollar!) Now in between all that a bunch of crazy kids were racing around as usual. But unusually Sam was trying to set up for a game and was carrying a weave pole while riding. A pretty normal task. But Ki didn't like the idea of carrying the extra weight and having Sam unbalanced while the kids were flying by. He decided to buck, and throw off Sam. Luckily, she was ok. She did have the wind knocked out of her though and re injured her previous injury. But after all, everyone got home fine and were off to another day when I get to ride Shay while Sam recovers.

Hives

Well Mayzee managed to keep hives for over a week now. Amazing isn't it?? So since her owner allowed us to we decided to go ahead with our lesson, keeping it so her body temperature wouldn't raise too much. In the arena today there were some wild kids barrel racing! They were nuts but luckily stayed pretty much out of the way. For today we stayed mostly at the walk with a trot here and there. I mean here and there because I didn't get my whip today due to her hives and she does not respond much to just leg. Because we couldn't do much I had the great privilege to have Sam ride Ki right next to me and really get after me on my position. Woohoo! lol. Then we went on to doing some arm exercises while posting. It was an ok lesson. Not the best. I am really out of shape since my break so I'll have to work on that. :)

Diagonals

Today we decided to work on diagonals. This exercise could be thought of to be a simple task. I mean, what could be so hard about making a straight line from one point to another right?? Wrong! Every time you take your horse off the rail you must use your leg and hand properly in order to not confuse the horse on where it should go. The slightest mistake could mean your horse moving to the side. In order to make a correct diagonal the horses back foot steps must be in line with the front ones.

In this picture you can see the horse staying in perfect alignment.

So to start out Mayzee and I began with a trot and started our diagonals. I was very successful! After about a few times going in both directions making diagonals, we started another exercise. This one, a little more familiar then the other... The crazy spirals... Although, this time around it was a lot more successful, less complicated, and we did not leg yield out. After trying that two times around on each direction and doing it without stirrups, we called it a day.

Tooth Flotation

So today I went out to the San Juan house to watch Rosie get her teeth done. When I got there the vet was already there and we were ready to begin. We started out by giving her two sedatives. One to just make her sleepy and the other to lower her head and kill most of the pain. The vet strapped on the tools like shown in the picture, and began to crank her mouth open. She also had a strap that went under her neck and held her head up. She began drilling the teeth down. Horses teeth never stop growing like ours do, so when their teeth grow sometimes they create ridged ends that are really uncomfortable for the horse, especially if it is poking the insides of their mouth. So once she's done drilling she shoots the top of Rosie's mouth with Novocaine. Because there are no nerves for the wolf teeth you only need to numb the area around it. She then, pretty much just took pliers and yanked the two wolf teeth out. Wolf teeth are very poorly placed in the horses mouth and can cause irritation especially with the bit. And unlike the other teeth, wolf teeth are not rooted in, they are only held in by cartilage. But if they are not pulled around the age of 2-3 yrs they can become harder to remove. Once the two teeth were pulled Rosie was done for the day.

For the rest of the time spent there we played with Shea in the sprinklers and watched Sam and Tequila dance while I took pictures.

Round Pen

Today we decided to start out in the round pen because their were kids turning out there horses in the arena. Mayzee had already been out this morning because Jody's niece Anna is in town. So I was a little worried that Mayzee was going to be a little more lazy then usual. To my surprise she was great. We started our warm up at the trot with a very long rein. Then we began to do a lot of half-halts to get her to really lift. She wouldn't really do it so much at the walk so we brought her up to a trot, then walked, half-halt, and we got a result! :) In the round pen still Sam asked me to pick up a canter. On the right lead she picked right up and I was very comfortable with my position etc. beside the fact that after I stopped Sam explained to me how to hold my outside rein and inside seat bone to connect through the horse. Very confusing to explain but once we used it going the other way it worked. Then we agreed to go into the ring while the crazy teens were barrel racing bareback, lol. We did maybe one or two trot transitions both ways and called it a day. Most the time cooling down at a walk, I was visualizing my position and trying to push her forward with my seat, and to my surprise it really worked!

Collection

This is a great site to refer to when seeking to be on the bit with collection.

Work then Play!!

Today we started off with me eating a cookie and drinking some water. Lol. Then we took off to the arena. Once we got there I tried to get Mayzee on a forward walk. Which for her seems almost impossible. After attempting that I picked up a nice trot and started our workout. Today our workout, well I'll call it the "crazy spirals." This is where we start out in a large circle, pick up the trot, and about 5 times around we begin to spiral in. You have to keep your inside leg consistent for the bend, outside leg keeping her forward, in side hand leading into the circle, and outside hand steady to control the bend. On top of all that you have to keep your basic position at the trot. Once in a 10m circle, or a volt, we begin to push her out in whats called a leg yield. This is where you use your inside leg with intense pressure, outside hand opens out to make the horse step sideways back into the original circle. After that horrifying workout we decided it was time to have a little bit of fun! Cross-rails! :) Sam set up a little two jump figure eight course and let me trot over some cross-rails. Mayzee was great and so was I! She took them like nothing tucking in her front legs, and kept a very forward trot and nice lope throughout it all. My main problem was my release, I caught her mouth a couple of times when she landed. But after that I kept my position great. I would like to see myself keeping my leg a little more forward with my heels down for next time. Although, it is hard with dressage stirrups. All in all it was a fantastic lesson and a huge work out. But it was fun!

Rodeo

After the little incident on Sunday Sam decided to just work me on the lunge for a half hour.
We worked on the same basics as before, position, trotting with and without stirrups, etc. Only this time Sam decided to have Mayzee canter out for a bit. Only Mayzee wasn't too fond of the green horse in the round pen "coming out of the bushes" So as soon as the two of us asked her for a canter she went off! Bucking, jumping, you know, all the good stuff.... Luckily I had my hands in position around the saddle and managed to stay on. So we thought we would get away from the scary bush and try again. We failed again. So I jumped down and we cantered her out on the lunge until she relaxed and called it a day.

Trail Ride

Today I went on a two hour trail on Mayzee with Sam and Ki. I got there right on time as usual but today is a Sunday and we scheduled for 10:30. Sam ended up being late and just as I was about to get up and leave, she arrived. We tacked up and decided to go for a nice trail ride up to the toll road bridge. It was beautiful and Sam told me all about her before death wish list. Hahaha. Mayzee, as usual, was terribly slow and I found myself having to get after her and get her trotting every few steps to keep up. Not very pleasurable. By the time we headed back I was exhausted and needed to get down and walk so I wasn't too sore. This worked out since Sam needed to stop at the barn real quick anyway and as I held the horses I began to feel really dizzy. I asked to sit down a while. It continued to be a step and sit procedure until Sam gave me a leg up to see if she could get me home. This didn't work either. We stopped at the general store and a very nice family bought me a water and a Snicker bar. After finishing the bar and calling my dad to pick me up I was all set for the hike back home.

That is the closest I could find to look like Mayzee, a bay draft with a blaze.

Four weeks in...

Well I'm about 4 weeks in on riding Mayzee today which means we have already covered basic muscle training and memory and worked once on a lunge line. It was my second day cantering and I feel a lot more successful this time around as I could tell the last time I had no position what so ever and I was able to keep my contact this time. Last time I met with Sam I had to give my long and short term goals which are as fallows: Shortterm-Have a steady seat at the canter with all the proper aids. Long Term- Have confidence around all horses, big and small, and be able to train younsters. Today we also went over some poles at the trot and raised them as we became more successful. I would like to work on getting in to the two-point much faster and more collected so I can direct Mayzee over the jumps more successfully, as she tended to veer to the left. Other then that I believe my lesson was one of the best yet! Mayzee is becoming more quick to respond to my leg and is able to keep a good pace with me.

The picture is a picture of a lady named Libby on this site.I chose this picture because Libby has the perfect balance and leg position that I wish to achieve.