Friday, June 12, 2015

Meet Market Light (Marley)

I'm super excited about the Retired Racehorse Project coming to Lexington this fall. I love what their mission is all about and I support it whole heartedly.  In fact, I had hoped that I could compete in it with Canoodler but, and I figured this was true, he has been off the track too long to be eligible.

So I teamed up with my friend Christine's horse that is in training with my coach Emily! It's perfect and this horse is PERFECT!

The horse is a 3 yr old filly named Market Light (by After Market). We call her Marley. She is the spitting image of "Black Beauty". So well put together, so friendly and kind, and she loves to have a job and gives our coach, Emily no fuss about it!

My coach Emily Brollier in the saddle and my friend and Marley's owner, Christine Siegel standing by them.
She's just so trainable and nice! I love to watch them! Emily rides Marley on the same days as we work Canoodler so I see them all the time.  I am completely living vicariously through them as they prepare for the RRP Thoroughbred Makeover in October. So I signed on to be their photo/video team member.

Marley was once in training to be a race horse at Winstar Farm. Her owners realized she wasn't going to make it as a race horse and rehomed her to Christine. And here we are today.

You can follow Christine, Emily and Marley on their facebook page Market Light: RRP 2015 Makeover Competitor. Please "Like" their page! You will be able to see their progress and share in the adventures as we go along. I'll be there as often as I can with camera in hand!

Last week I created this video of Marley and Emily as they worked. She's a young horse and Emily explains in the video what her training goals entail. This will be a whole lot of fun to see her progress!

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Summer is Here And We're Having Fun


 
 

Since the horse show in May, Noodle and I have been continuing our work with Emily Brollier and working through some of his physical issues.  We seem to work great right after he has a chiropractic treatment, then we slowly get stiff and grumpy and by 3 to 4 weeks later, he's spooking at everything and difficult to ride. Call the chiropractor and he's good as new and the horse I always dreamed of! 

I actually have Dr. Lark Carroll come out about once a month for the adjustment, then two weeks later we do massage and laser therapy. He also gets a monthly injection of Adequan. We are seeing improvements in him and his chiropractic adjustment don't seem to be as big as when we first started. Our last adjustment he only needed mild adjustments most everywhere, his right TMJ (jaw) was the only major adjustment - the month before it was his left TMJ! 

Dr. Lark Carroll making an adjustment in the hip of a Friesian gelding.
The combination of the regular exercise, massage and chiro are helping Canoodler a whole lot! It shows in his topline and the best result I'm seeing is that the roach in his back is going down and the muscles around his spine are getting bigger so it's going away!  The bad news was that my saddle was causing most of his back pain now. It took me awhile but I found a saddle fitter that came out and was able to add flocking where we needed it. The saddle fits him well and I can tell he's much happier about it. 

We are continuing on with training. I really love how we are developing. Both of us are improving and eventually I'll be able to really keep my seat in the tack at the canter. Darn those hunter/jumper days!

Here is a video of me and Noodle just before he had a chiropractic adjustment and after we had the saddle reflocked.

Considering he had tantrums and spooking fits just two days earlier I thought he was going darn well!



And then here is Emily working him after he had the chiro too. She can really get him to stride out so much better than I can. Must work on that!




Canoodler looked so good today with Emily Olive Brollier! He should... He was adjusted by Dr. Larkspur Carroll on Wednesday night and he's usually his best after that. He also had our saddle flocking adjusted to fit him better. But the icing on the cake is having an excellent rider on him to help him get his you know what together! I love the shoulder-in in the video!
Posted by Wendy Uzelac Wooley on Friday, June 5, 2015
So we are keeping on with our program. I hope to do some outings with him soon and see if we can gear up for another horse show in August.