photo by Hoofclix.com
Tales of Taco the Wonder Horse and his ammy rider on their way to a Training Three Day

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Taco Cookie

The title has no particular meaning; it's just something I call him sometimes.  Taco has been his lovely and adorable self, and I always smile when I walk in and see his face pop over the stall door. He has been a superstar for the past week or so.  The hives made a very brief appearance last week after some rain (hmm.... pattern here...) but I am pulling my hair out less.  I am still considering doing an allergy test.


 Why yes, I do know that I am cute!

One thing that I have noticed, now that I have experienced a stretch of not competing,  is that I am concentrating on the quality of my riding and training more, for their own sake.  Since last winter was so harsh it felt like we never had that nice downtime in which to ride a lot and make some progress.  So, now that the weather is good and the semester is over, I have felt like I have paid better attention to our development as a partnership.  I hope that this work transfers over to the shows when we go again.

I've actually been enjoying dressage schools.  Why is it that the best dressage rides happen when there is no one watching but the dog? I've been playing a lot with leg-yielding and counter canter, and both really help supple him.  Then I try some lengthenings at the end of the ride and get some nice ones!  It wouldn't be a bad idea for us to visit a dressage show this summer.

Our lesson last weekend was really challenging and interesting.  Amy wants me to try sitting lighter on Taco's back during the approach to fences.  So the trick is to teach myself that I really can be effective with my aids in two-point.  Taco responded by jumping well, we thought.  What do you think?



I am going away this weekend to volunteer at the MayDaze horse trials at the Kentucky Horse Park.  I'm looking forward to the trip and to seeing many friends ride by as I fence judge, but I am not wanting to leave Taco.  I'll also be gone the following weekend at the Indiana T3D, where I will volunteer for both the event and the Long Format Club.  And then I will spend six days in mid-June in New York City doing research.  So I'll be missing my number one guy a lot over the next few weeks, but it makes my time with him all the sweeter.

1 comment:

Annika Kostrubala said...

I don't think you need the allergy tests- ask more people, but from what I know, it's imperfect and horses always come up allergic to everything, inc grass, and then what are you going to do?

He got hives with me a few times. A short course of dex and on we went. Yes, was a bit of a worry, but none needed- usually a 3 day course worked the charm. And then sometimes I let his immune system deal and it did and on we went. Kind of like a cold, 7 days if you treat, 7 days if you don't. I knew he was miserable, however, I would occ. give just one dose in those situations. Depending on what I had on hand.

Good Luck! Hope the TDE was fun!