New Phone and... Football?

Soo.... a very non-horsey post today. 1) I GOT A NEW PHONE!!!! Aaaahhhh so excited, I finally was able to ditch my 2 year old HTC smartphone... however, smart, it was not. It was about as slow as molasses, continuously froze up, and could barely manage more than one app at a time. So, when I discovered that I was eligible for an upgrade early (!!!) I promptly toted myself down to the Verizon store and picked up a brand new, shiny LG Spectrum 4G LTE phone. It's a lot bigger than my old phone, but then any new smartphone is huge compared to my old little piece of junk... but, IT'S SO PRETTY!!!! The graphics are amazing, HD indeed! Everything...

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Teaching lateral flexion at the poll in an OTTB

It's not as easy as it sounds. Cash has this lovely little track habit of when there is contact on the bit to twist his head to the right and chew incessantly at the bit. Chew. Chew. Chew. And because his head is turned to the side, he is most definitely not flexing properly at the poll. Under saddle it is just a process of being patient, very very patient. And gently correcting him every time he tries to twist his head to the side. At the halt I flex his head back and forth, teaching him to give from the reins, and then use this skill while walking. This is also starting to teach him the basis of bending through his body. I'm also just starting to teach him to move off my leg by teaching turns on the forehand, and starting to teach a reinback. Both I've only done once, but hey, gotta start...

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He jumps!!!

I will let pictures and video tell this story today, enjoy!  A few screen shots from the video: I'm very VERY pleased!! He picked up on it quickly, and showed great form over the fences. He also seemed to really enjoy it once he figured out what to do and was going over the jump with little to no encouragement from me :) I couldn't be happi...

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March Madness

No, I'm not a basketball fan... I avoid it at all costs if I can. BUT Between work craziness, term papers, lab reports, exams, shuttling kids around, laundry, housework, homework, and barn duties, with an extra helping of menopausal weather..... it sure feels like madness right now!! We pretty much checked off all the February goals with flying colors. With the exception of the hand walking trails/roads and the free jumping. But because those are weather dependent, I wasn't too stressed about meeting those goals. Plus, in order to free jump I needed to prep the poles. See I bought a bunch of poles last fall for cheap, but they were old fence poles and had a bunch of iron nails in the end. Hubby finally lent a hand and pulled them all out for me so I've been working Cash over trot poles...

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