Singing in the Rain

Yesterday I woke up to a cloudy sky with 40% chance of rain. Great. I fed the horses early, put their halters on, and brought a lead rope with me back to the house to take out when Terrie arrived. Terrie came at about 11 o clock, and she trimmed Charlotte and Teddy herself, leaving Woody last so I could help trim him. I trimmed his right front foot, and after Woody had a bit of a tantrum wanting to see where Charlotte was, he settled down nicely and allowed me to learn from his hoof.
Trimming is a lot harder than it looks! But it was fun and rewarding because I could see the things Terrie pointed out, and I was able to tell if the hoof was symmetrical and even. It was pretty cool, and Terrie showed me the difference in trimming a horse from the top completely to how she usually trims. She told me that trimming completely from the top is a good maintenance trim, but since she sees her clients 6-8 weeks apart, she has to use nippers to save her arms and time that would be demanded with the rasp only. Other than that little difference, her method of trimming is basically trimming from the top, a non-invasive and severe trim.
After we trimmed, I tacked Woody up and we worked with the bridle some, showing Terrie what I call the "awkward place" where he is putting the bit in his mouth and getting it over the ears and he gets worried. We took each step slowly: first getting the bridle positioned in front of his head, waiting until he relaxed, putting the bit under his mouth, and WAITING until he relaxed, then sliding it on, and waiting for him to relax. It was good to see breaking it down and the importance of waiting in those spots with him.
We headed out to a round, grassy area that wasn't clay based (it had started raining by then), I mounted up (we noticed that Woody's head went up a bit when I put my foot in the stirrup... hmmm), and started warming up a bit freestyle. Terrie was pleased with all the changes Woody and I had made with our riding, so it was cool to show her all the really clean turns we could get and how easily he followed through the turns with his thought.
We then originally set off doing an exercise on bringing in the reins and asking for a really nice bend and soft feel in his neck, and when he gave it to being squeezing with my legs with my toes out turned, kind of squeezing him UP and encouraging him to lift up. The problem was that both Woody and I are so new to Finesse that it was hard to get that feel in the neck long enough to get an understanding of my leg and bringing him back up.
Once Woody peed (he had been holding back a bit and Terrie said she thought that he looked like he had to), he was bit more free in his back end and more focused. We rode out on straight lines to keep Woody active and engaged, and she told me to bring in my reins and "massage" them; meaning she wanted me to hold the reins with contact, but more one than the other so that his thought went out that way, then release a little bit, and switch hands and make the other rein a bit shorter to ask him to think that way. This worked pretty good and he began to bring his head in a bit, and I was really trying to focus on feeling this when it happened.
We also talked about stopping, getting a soft feel (which he usually back up to), but encouraging the thought and movement forward with that same feeling. After we started doing this he got a couple really nice strides of his head in and I released him. We would periodically, not throw him away, but gently allow him to have his head back and get him walking out again with a purpose. At one point he turned, I asked him to go bigger, he broke into a fast trot, I started asking him to gently bend, and he began an attempt at his sideways canter. I still held him in a slight bend with one rein in the air some, and he eventually let go of that thought and came around the turn and walked out again. I feel like I handled that very well and I didn't get anxious or nervous when it happened, I just calmly bent him around a bit, then sent him out.
This was a good session because we had to start somewhere, and this was a good place to start getting some understanding with Woody with some exercises and ideas I wouldn't have thought of on my own. I was able to feel when he brought himself off the bit and stopped pushing into it, which was the main goal of the lesson: helping me be able to feel what was correct when asking him to do something.
Afterwards, I untacked him and Terrie was drying him with a towel when she noticed that he reacted pretty strongly when she rubbed his shoulder area (approximately where the knee roll of a saddle went). She told me he was pretty sore there, which would explain the occassional very small reaction when I groomed him. She advised me to only ride him in a bareback pad for a while and keep monitoring the soreness to see if it is indeed my saddle, at which point I would need to start looking at some different saddle pads. I'm pretty surprised because I have been riding in that saddle for a good while now and I've never seen him sore, but Terrie said it could be linked to his weight loss and that might make him extra sensitive. This new found realization is humerous because about a week ago I sold my Theraflex pad online because I didn't use it, needed money, and felt like it didn't really work for us. Now it turns out I might need some type of airpad afterall. Isn't that how it always works? Haha, oh well...
~Eden