A Enter Spooking: Test Riding

Thursday, March 28, 2013

Test Riding

The last couple days have been pretty great for Rico and I! Spring break has given me a lot more time to spend with him and that has paid off quite a bit. Break has also given me a lot of time to take pictures and the good ones will be randomly placed to distract from the walls of text about my horse!

My favorite tree

On Tuesday I was feeling a bit down since I felt like Rico and I were working SO hard and had little to show for it. The past couple of days he wasn't very well balanced at the canter and I couldn't get him to do any lateral work without a fight. We ended on a good note, but I was still a bit frustrated that all of this work has boiled down to a LESS rideable horse. I was just frustrated with my lack of ability to ride him consistently to Tracey's standard.

Dandy pony at dusk

I was also frustrated because I WANT TO SHOW! Here I finally have a SOUND horse who is working well at fourth level (well, he is now, read on) and I haven't been able to show this year yet. So my frustration with our failure on Tuesday coupled with my desire to show made me really anxious to fix all of these problems before my lesson on Saturday so that Tracey and I can come up with a plan to get us to some SHOWS!

One of the many informative signs in the forest

With this in mind, yesterday I decided that I was going to slap on the double and my big spurs, and attack 4-2 like there was no tomorrow. There's no reason why he shouldn't be able to do this test in his sleep, minus the right pirouette, which I need to accept a 4 on and stop stressing. I braced myself for a terrible ride but....

I had so much fun photographing this fire

IT WAS AMAZING! Upon riding the test, I realized that he is a THOUSAND times more rideable in the trot, I can easily keep him with me and the counter change of hand was perfect. Before it felt like I was being pulled around the entire test and that the movements came so fast that I couldn't really control him. Now it feels like we are staying together and the movements feel much slower. I feel like I could literally take that trot work into the Grand Prix ring.

I love this bridge

The left pirouette was pretty good! It was made better when I softened my hand forward so that he could stretch his neck down a bit. I want to work with this with Tracey on Saturday. The right pirouette is a shit show, made worse by my lack of coordination to the right. He seems so capable, so I'm hoping Tracey has a magical exercise that makes it perfect. But honestly, everything else was so PERFECT it seems a shame to not show this test because of ONE movement that isn't perfect. So Yarra Yarra, HERE WE COME!

A heavily edited Dandy pony

The high from yesterday made me nervous to get on him today. I decided that I was going to stick with the easy work (especially since he worked hard the day before, but also because I had to get to work). I did some transitions, working specifically on the canter to trot transition until it was perfect. I refuse to lose points on easy movements (since my right pirouette, tempis, and trot extensions are going to screw me over), so we drilled it until it was absolutely perfect! Such a good pony. So good that I took a chance and tried a counter change of hand at the canter. I'm not sure why I chose to ruin a perfectly good ride with a PSG movement. But OH MY GOD MY HORSE IS AMAZING! He literally did the movement better than I've felt on ANY horse, let alone the horse that used to gallop away in the zig zags.

Woodside forests

So this is me, eating my words about how I didn't think we were on the right track. Turns out that the work I'm doing IS paying off, and that I just need to do a bit of test riding to make sure that the movements are still good.

Overall I'm super pleased with my wonderful animal :)