Clover Ledge Farm

Well, after the two-day clinic with Ashley , I gave Ellie exactly 11 days off and then hopped on her for a lazy hack on Friday the 13th.  We toddled around in the pasture and up and down the driveway, as everything was frozen.  Thankfully, there was no ice but the footing still wasn't ideal for much. Though I had intended to give Ellie most (if not all) of December off, I jumped on the chance to do a Pony Club lesson with Tom Davis at Swan Brook Equestrian Center.  This is Lauren's farm, the Atlantic PC's coach. It was a bit of a last-minute decision, hence the reason I got on Ellie on Friday haha.  It POURED all day Saturday, so I knew if I wanted a semi-sane horse for Sunday's clinic, I needed to ride at least briefly on Friday. Spoiler alert: She was fine both days. Trying to attend anything in December in Maine with a horse is tough.  I was lucky that the day was sunny, the roads were bare, and most importantly, my steep dirt driveway was clear w...

Early spring saw some immediate changes in how Ellie carried herself and our dressage work started to truly improve.  There had been times last year where flat work felt like a fight and I wondered to myself if she was ever going to just relax and listen to me haha. Thankfully, as the title suggests, Ellie has suddenly grown up in front of my eyes.  We have had some really stellar lessons lately, where I feel like I am suddenly able to make things click.  We also had an incredibly frustrating dressage lesson a few weeks ago where Ellie was in rip-roaring peeing heat (not normal for her) and we worked through 45 minutes of her refusing to bend right.  So, ya know, as much as she is improving, she is still an opinionated redheaded mare!  ;-) But, I have to give her credit because she is really working her little butt off for me!  Sadly, I had not been able to schedule in a jump lesson before our first three-phase, which led to me riding her ridiculously ...

Spring in Maine has finally sprung! After a long six months of winter, the sn*w is gone (save for a few areas on the shoulder of shady back roads) and the grass is greening up. I honestly had my doubts it would ever arrive haha. Of course, it has been quite cold, windy, and rainy, but at least there is no sn*w. April 18 - the white crap just didn't want to leave! After several excellent lessons this winter and early spring on Taylor Rose, I was finally able to get the horse trailer safely down our steep driveway to bring Ellie for lessons again. We took a lesson on the Wednesday of April school break and another one this past Saturday.  April 22 - finally GONE! Honestly, I wasn't expecting much after a winter of boring walking rides.  We didn't "do" anything significant in my mind from December through March.  But much to my surprise and delight, she has come out of a winter of boring walking rides a much stronger and more mature horse. Her walk and t...

It may be officially spring on the calendar, but there is plenty of sn*w on the ground here in Maine!  And a bit of mud, since it has started to s l o w l y melt and rain a bit.  Phew!  I swear, there is still two feet of the white stuff covering the ground at my farm.  Small areas of grass are slowly appearing, but most of the farm is buried. That said, I have been doing my best to commit to a spring conditioning schedule now that daylight savings time has arrived.  It has been MUCH easier to get into a decent routine with the sun setting later and all of us finally feeling better! March 18 Of course, it is pretty boring right now, since the footing makes it so that we can only walk around the snowy field.  When the ice on the driveway finally melted, I was able to incorporate walking up and down the hill.  But I will say, all this walking has definitely helped Ellie understand connection and reaching for the bit more than anything else. ...

When I bought Ellie back at the end of 2017, I somehow came across the Morgan Dressage Association's Facebook page.  Promoting Morgans in dressage is a cause I find worthy of support, and of course with a fun year end award program it seemed like something I might want to do with Ellie someday haha.  They base their awards on rated USDF shows, so it will be some time before we are ready to show regularly at that level though.  Schooling shows are life (and cheaper and closer...!)  MDS also has a scholarship program and an interesting newsletter, so overall it seemed worth the small fee. Besides sending in my yearly membership check, I have admittedly not had much to do with the organization.  However, back in November, I received two different emails from MDA about their scholarship program, as they were extending the due date by two weeks. Basically, MDA awards three to four $500 scholarships a year, to be used exclusively on dressage training on a Morg...

To be honest, this was my first not-my-own-horse riding lesson in a looooong while!  I rode my former instructor's Second level horse a couple times back in 2009 and 2010, and I regularly rode school horses when in college from 1997-2001.  So to ride a horse that is not my own in a lesson situation was definitely strange...and good! No media from the lesson, but I will share a few pics so this isn't a hugely boring post haha. an early Sunday morning ride with Miss Ellie Beth had been mentioning all summer how she wanted to stick me on her daughter's twenty two year old Grand Prix horse and we decided we would wait for winter to do so.  Well, mostly I decided that because I wanted to lesson on Ellie all year haha.  I knew once winter hit and my driveway became unsafe for moving a trailer, I would be happy to ride the GP schoolmaster.  My last Ellie lesson was back at the end of November with the Ashley Madison clinic .  The first weekend of Decembe...

After a great in hand lesson a week ago Saturday as I wrote about  here , a week ago Sunday we went to Beth's for our regular dressage lesson.  It was cold (five degrees colder up north at her farm than it was at mine!) and windy when we arrived, and I struggled with keeping Ellie's saddle pad from blowing away as I was tacking up LOL.  Needless to say, she was a little tight and reactive when I first got on down at the indoor.  I spent time walking her around, asking for changes of bend to get her to relax.  I asked for a trot and she was still tight; it was obvious that despite the fact she was listening, she was looking for any excuse to spook. Beth arrived to the indoor and I started feeling like maybe this was going to be a stressful lesson lol.  Ellie isn't an inherently spooky horse in my opinion and she has a good brain, but she is sensitive.  I chatted with Beth a little and just stayed relaxed, and we started working on getting Ellie to real...

My riding lessons as of late have been focused on teaching Ellie the basics of leg yield, shoulder in, haunches in (travers), and lengthenings.  On my own at home, I have worked quite a bit with her on shoulder fore, leg yielding in both the walk and trot, and we have practiced variations within the trot gait, so she is familiar with the idea of trotting more forward when asked.  However, on my own I had not asked specifically for shoulder in, haunches in, or lengthenings. I did that weird app thing on FB where you find out your most used words.  I didn't post it but took a screenshot instead. Yeah, looks about right for my life!  It feels as though we spent sooooooo long just getting a solid walk, trot, and canter but now that those basics seems firmly installed, we are moving on up to big girl dressage things.  Ellie seems to enjoy the new challenges and has a strong work ethic and desire to try.  She definitely forgives my mistakes (mostly be...

Overall, things are going well in Ellie land.  We had a dressage lesson last week and then both a dressage lesson and jump lesson this week.   And we've been trail riding too! Our lesson last week was probably one of our most challenging rides as we did a lot of work on transitions within the trot and promptness in the upward canter transition (and really, promptness for ALL transitions).  Ellie is a weird combination of lazy and forward right now, as she definitely doesn't think she needs to be prompt about ANYTHING yet she also sometimes gets it into her head that Fast is Beautiful.  She seems to have a basic understanding of half halts, but the transitions within the trot were hard for her.  She's such a sensitive mare that I have to be tactful with my seat when asking for a bigger or smaller trot.  She started to understand what I was asking her, and we were able to correctly hold the differentiation in gait for a few strides.  This is d...