Hi guys!

It has been a while since I have posted ...seems like time really flies by. It has been about 8 or 9 weeks since I have ridden the silly Coda pony, but he has been in work. My good friend Keith has been keeping Coda going for me; mostly hacking through the Moss Foundation. Coda officially now has the best ground manners in the barn. I have asked Keith to teach all the horses to behave like Coda. He stood ground tied for the farrier today and never moved a foot!

We took him to the hitchcock pen yesterday, as it has been a while since Coda jumped anything. After Keith led him around for a while without a lead...he followed right next to Keith through turns, stopping and backing up, we sent him down the chute. After the first time through, Coda knew what he was there for, and we would just raise an arm to point toward the entrance to the chute and Coda would canter down through it, and then return to position at Keith's side after each time through. He was loving it! I plan to get back on him next week, as I have been trying to make sure my arm is working properly first! It was totally frozen still after taking the cast off 2 weeks ago.

I hope you all have been by Coda's page on my site www.trainoreventing.com and seen his picture. In memory of his big brother, we would like to give Coda a show name that either has Theodore, Connor, or something related in it. Please email your suggestions to ctrain2000@hotmail.com or post them here under comments. I would love to get everyone's ideas and help on picking a name! Thanks,

Christan 

Well, I haven't posted for a little while because I was unable to type very well! A little over a week ago, I got on the little man after giving him 5 days off. I was not thinking, didn't longe him and as I swung my leg over I realized there was a new mare who had just been turned out in the paddock right next to where I mounted. Coda noticed too, and as I was getting on he swung his head around to check her out, got the reins pulled way long out of my hands and headed toward the fence....down the steep hill. I jerked his head and he jerked back, got his head down and going toward the fence...I thought for a second he was going to try to jump the fence, but when he got to it he swerved hard right,and bucked right under a low tree branch. With tree in my face, and little reins plus barely a foot in the stirrup I clearly remember thinking...hmmm, I think I will just let go now...and I did. But when I stood up my right wrist was S shaped!!! This was the first time I have ever bailed off a horse, and it begs me to ponder...should we EVER jump off unless we are headed for a car, or a cliff?

  I yelled for one of the girls to get Coda and put him up, and the other to grab a roll of vetwrap, a track wrap, my purse and call the neighbor to find out where the hospital was! I wrapped the arm with vetwrap, made a sling with the bandage, and yelled that I did NOT want to wait for the ambulance. After threatening to drive myself ( or so they thought apparently ;) , I made it to the car and the hospital. My favorite part of the ER was the doctor telling me that they needed to remove the vetwrap to look at my arm. I told them fine... after they gave me some pain meds. No, we need to look at it right now. When I refused, the doctor tried to tell me that I had to remove the vetwrap because I could have created a tournicate which would make my hand fall off due to lack of circulation. I laughed and told him that I put vetwrap on horses quite frequently, and I have never had a leg fall off!!! I was then given pain meds!! So Tuesday I had surgery to put a plate and screws into my right shattered radius. I am typing one-handed at the moment, and will be for the next several weeks...

  Coda was scheduled to be collected and frozen the next day, so I had a friend who breaks horses come out and work him the next morning, to make sure he remembered what his real job was. And he was great. My friend kept saying was a fabulous pony and especially a stallion he was. We even brought the mare out right next to him and he was a perfect gentleman. He went and collected wonderfully, hauling in the trailer with my other stallion, Sea Accounts. So my friend will be working with him a little until I can get back on him. And what did we say when his brother was having his pony moments....little SNIT!!!!

   We had a group come school cross country this week, and the kids wanted to see him so they hacked over to the fence. I watched him put his head down, rub his fly mask off over his head on his leg, catch it mid-air with his teeth and walk up shaking it in his mouth like a dog with a toy.....no wonder the girls have been having to fetch it from the field every day! He is not the slightest bit mouthy though, and I want him to stay that way so I resist giving him a toy in his field to bite and fling around.

  I apologize that the website page has not been updated, but I have heard that the site is in the middle of being totally revamped and switched to a new host, so it will be up and better than ever soon. Talk to you all later,

Christan and the Snit!

  So Coda has moved out of the ring. I think I have ridden him 3 times in the dressage ring and twice in the jump ring, where he has done walk trot, circles and gone over poles.....so enough ring work for him for a while. He is going to go hack the rest of the summer.

  I took him out with another horse for the first time last Thursday, and we went out on the Moss Foundation. We walked and trotted, with Coda leading, as well as got a lead through the water crossing.  On the way back we were trotting up a hill and Coda stepped into the most wonderful canter ever. I believe it was his first time cantering under saddle, and it was slow and balanced, and horse strided!!!! It felt like we had been doing it for years. We came to a bridge, which was about 30 feet long with rails and water running underneath. Coda was not sure and backed up twice, then took a deep breath and marched right across the bridge, without hurrying or stepping gingerly, or my urging. He rides like an old pro!

  Today I took him out again, this time with 2 other horses, and we led and followed, and trotted right beside everyone. We went through the water several times, over another bridge, and we even cantered several times for long stretches, again both in the front and behind. He did spook for the first time ever today, when a deer jumped out right beside him, but his spook was the smallest of all the horses!  By the end of the ride we were walking on the buckle with my feet hanging out of the stirrups!

  I had a dream last week that I was trotting down a lane between two fences on Coda and the next thing I knew we were galloping,but quietly and in perfect harmony, yet it was the first time we had cantered ( this was before my actual canter on him on the trail...actually before I ever took him on the trail). We were in perfect harmony galloping along and we came to a spot where there was surveyers tape all over the lane. I didn't see it until we were in it, but Coda just stopped and walked his way out of it, never getting upset or flustered. I woke up with this incredibly happy feeling. I wonder if we as riders just know, or if we manifest these experiences with our horses? His first canter felt just like in my dream, and I was overcome with the same joy.

  Coda has not acted like a stallion a single time, and I don't ever use a chain on him. He has collected and is very fertile, so I am hoping that it is just his good brain and a job that is keeping him behaving so well. I told the girls I was riding with today that I felt like I could just point him at the little log pile jumps on the trail and he would just jump them like he had been doing it for years.....I have to restrain myself!

  Coda did buck a little today, but it was a one leg out to the side buck and it was because the saddle was sliding forward up his neck in the canter...I have to find a saddle that fits him well while he is developing. It was the kind of kick out where you don't miss a beat and keep on cantering, while I am giggling as his silliness!

  I think I will try to find some really little schooling shows to take him to and just hack around while other horses are showing. And hack like we are for the rest of the summer.  I can't tell you all how elated I am with his progress (and how natural it feels to ride him). Now if only I could get him to stop rubbing his head on me when I take the bridle off!!!!

Christan

OH...his webpage should be up in the next day or so with pictures, I hope!

This week has been a good one for Coda. He went for his first hack, all by himself, and he was rock solid. He has been so good and unfazed by everything that I actually used him as a lead for the baby horse into the water jump! I would never have thought that I would be using the 3 yr old stallion as a lead/bumper horse through the water jump for another horse!

  He has figured out the jumping thing though. I guess he was so inspired by the free-jumping session that he took it upon himself to practise some more...and jumped out of his paddock! We spent the next day adding insulators and hot tape to extend the height of his fence. Luckily he hasn't been bothered to do it again.

  During his first hack out, we were coming out of the woods and a group of deer startled and bolted, but Coda just looked at them and never missed a beat..he didn't even slow down. I had a few students competing today at the Carolina Horse Park, so I decided to take Coda along and teach him to stand on the trailer. I was a little worried as he has never had to "hang out" on the trailer, and usually I try to take the babies with a good horse and let them have their temper tantrums about not standing, especially when the other horse leaves. Coda never called one single time, never moved a foot, and when I returned after warming up my student, Coda was sound asleep with his head in the hay bag!!!

  I took him off the trailer and led him around a little, and if it wasn't so darn hot I would have tacked him up and ridden him. But I was tired and he was so relaxed I didn't want to end the day with him getting silly....although he hasn't gotten silly about anything yet! So he came home and went back out in his paddock. I kept telling people he was being such a good boy because he was wearing his big brother's halter with the name plate "Theodore O'Connor", so he had big things to live up too today!

Christan

 Saturday was a busy day for Coda! First, a group of Pony Club eventers came to the farm to school the cross country with their coach. After riding they came to the barn to meet Teddy's little brother and love on him a little, which Coda thought was just grand. After that, a friend of mine came by the farm to get some video of Coda free jumping. I will get them up on YouTube as soon as I figure out how, I promise. I have never free jumped him myself, although he has been with Wynn. I set up a placing pole, 18 feet to an x-oxer (started as an x of course). That pony never missed a spot to the jump, making the 18 foot distance look easy.

   After that I took him out on the cross country course and jumped him over the ditch and up and down the bank, plus over a log pile that he had never seen before. He was great. Today after I rode him a little in the ring I thought I would take him down to the water jump to look at it. So after untacking and giving him a bath we led him to the water, but of course the dog had to join in! So we get to the water jump and the dog is running back and forth through it (it was 90 today!), Coda takes one look at it and the dog and proceeds to march right in and right out the other side. Never lept or spooked, just right in like he had been doing it for years! And pushed right past the dog!

   He has developed this quiet assured confidence lately in his attitude toward things. His brother was always a bit silly about things touching his feet and the hose touching his hind legs, etc. I have been waiting for the same reaction out of Coda, but today the hose was all around his hind legs and he wasn't upset at all. He is careful mind you, not insensitive, but in a different way. He doesn't seem worried about anything.

  I have a new yearling colt in the stall next to Coda, and he has been getting lots of treats and praise in the cross ties right outside of Coda's stall for the last two days since he got here. Well today I pulled Celty out first and started to groom him and Coda stuck his head over the door, pinned his ears at Celty and kicked the wall. I think all this attention is going to his head! But really, this is the first time that I have seen Coda care about us not fussing over him, and wanted to get out and work. I hope it is a good sign! There should be a new Coda page on my website soon www.trainoreventing.com , and there will be new pictures and the YouTube link, though I will post it here as well. You will all laugh at the pony mowhawk going on up I love it, because it is the same unruly mane I had to braid on his brother. Maybe Wynn needs to start breeding for a non-pony hairdo in the next set.

  I hope you are all feeling a little better this week. It has been difficult, but I have found solice in going on with my daily horse routine, and spending lots of time at the barn loving on my horses (and pony!!!). We will never get over this, but we can remember fondly the great things. Please feel free to contact me with your thoughts and memories,

   Christan