In a Court!

DAMN my horse is brilliant.

Today I threw him in the trailer and my wonderful mother who can back a trailer anywhere drove us over to Tracey's barn in Watsonville for a lesson in the dressage court.

Rico was STOKED. He got out of the trailer and the spooking began. Tracey and I found it amusing at first but man was he irritating once I realized that he wasn't going to calm down. Once as we started the trot work though, everything fell into place beautifully.

Now, I don't have a dressage court at home and we don't use the one at Woodmyst when we ride there, so it's been since my last show at the end of June since I rode in a court at all. Yikes.

First, Tracey noticed how poorly I rode my corners. I didn't actually enter the corner, just kind of skipped it all together and wondered why all hell broke loose on the other side. Next, Tracey noted how horrible I was about actually riding to letters. The test has a bit like this: KE shoulder-in right, E volte 8m right, EG half pass right. I was evidently not quite getting to E with those voltes so it looked like I just drunkenly pulled on the inside rein and circled whenever I felt like it. I guess that won't win you any points from the judge and it certainly doesn't win you any praise from Tracey.

Once that was resolved, the trot work in general was quite good! I need to get used to riding his big fancy trot a bit better so that's my project this week before the show. My mom got some videos and it was obvious that I was riding more like a 3rd level trot within the confines of an FEI test, big problem.

After the trot, we moved into the canter and he was completely spot on over his topline and, once as it was made clear to me how quiet the canter was, very active. We rode the half passes first and once again my lack of riding corners caused serious problems on the other side. Once as those were fixed though, we had the most brilliant zig zag EVER I mean really, who is this animal??

We focused a lot on the tempis since I can't ride 5 changes anywhere. I was pleasantly surprised that Rico was very focused and good about the count. The quality of the changes weren't that great, he'd kick every now and then and he got progressively more downhill as we went along, but I was pleased. Tracey (as usual when it comes to things that I find good and she finds unacceptable) wasn't pleased but it was mostly me who she wasn't pleased with. Evidently I throw my upper body around like a rag doll during the changes and the video proves that she's totally right (not that I ever doubt her anymore)!! I was so confused by keeping my upper body still that I couldn't actually ride any changes without moving. So that's a project this winter.

Finally, we ended with some large working pirouettes in the pattern we'll be riding. You head across the diagonal, pirouette around X-ish, then come back and counter canter the short side until C when you change. The pirouettes are tough for us, so Tracey wanted to make sure that I could do that counter canter and change movement well enough so that the whole pirouette pattern wasn't a complete disaster. It went surprisingly well when I didn't let him stay off the bit after the pirouettes. He gets a bit hollow in them, which is fine, but when he stays hollow through the counter canter, he goes together behind in the change and that's BAD. So my big goal in that pattern is to not let the pirouettes ruin the counter canter and change.

Overall he was absolutely brilliant. I'm SO pleased with how far he's come. My first lesson with Tracey was all about connection and walk-trot transitions, now we're showing Prix St George in eight days.

Pictures/stills from the videos to come! Unfortunately a lot of the videos were blurry (need to figure out my mom's new camera...) so I don't know if I'll be able to post the videos, maybe bits of them!

"Acceptable" is a Bad Word

Last night I broke the news to Tracey. I had signed up for PSG. I mean she told me I could! But I prepared for the ass-kicking of a lifetime in that lesson and I was not disappointed. 

During my warm up, Rico felt explosive. He spooked at everything, refused to trot and instead cantered in place, and kept charging off whenever he felt a brush of my spur. I went over to Tracey and warned her, "he's really high tonight," I said. She looked at me like I was completely insane. "He doesn't look high," she said. My horse was resting a foot and taking a nap. So I said "he's not going to waste his energy looking energetic right now! He's saving it to buck me off later." And he certainly thought about it...

During the lesson I wanted to focus primarily on the trot since I really feel like we can get 7s across the board at the trot (well, not the extended stuff) if I ride it well. The canter work is just going to be what it's going to be. I don't know if my attitude toward the canter was much appreciated so we started with that.

I picked up the canter from the walk and was immediately told to do it again. I then proceeded to have the most nitpicky fantastic lesson on walk-canter transitions I've ever experienced. It crossed my mind that here I am signed up for PSG and I'm practicing a second level movement. It then crossed my mind that Tracey is a wizard so I went with it. The big issue was that Rico kind of shuffles into the canter a little downhill, then three strides later we both take the canter seriously and it gets better. Evidently this is bad and not worthy of the FEI levels, woops. There's a lot of things my horse does that isn't worthy of the FEI levels.

FEI horses don't allow cones on their backs

FEI horses have heads

FEI horses aren't so impressively lazy that
they can't get up to switch sides when rolling

Once as those were good, Tracey attacked worked on my inability to do anything but an "acceptable" lead change. I struggled a lot with this. She wanted me to really push him forward and uphill into the change and I'm just not very comfortable with that. Do you know how much blood, sweat, and tears (well, mostly sweat) went into getting this damn horse to change without exploding? He has HUGE changes, which I got to experience once again last night. I mean they were the best damn changes I've ever experienced in my life. But little 19 year old Megan learning to do lead changes for the first time definitely stifled them long ago.

I explained that to Tracey, that I used to be afraid of him and years were spent trying to get him quiet enough for me to ride. Now it's all muscle memory of shutting down the canter, shuffling through the change (which is merely acceptable and it seems to annoy her that it's clean despite my poor riding), and then picking him back up. So I have homework.

Next we did the trot work. The trot felt and looked (mirrors!) fantastic. Like holy shit that is not my horse, that is some fancy FEI horse someone has switched out with mine to play a mean joke on me. But no, he shook his head at me and was reluctant to bend left, definitely mine. After some 10 meter circles (and a tip from Tracey about the volte, which we didn't school- make the first half of the circle small, then spiral it out a bit. Judge at C can't tell and it actually looks better than an actual volte), we did the shoulder-in and half passes. They were shockingly good. I can't really explain it. My abs were burning though, and when I said it aloud Tracey said "good" and recommended that I go to the gym. I guess running isn't good enough!

We then touched a bit on the half passes at the canter. Once again I was satisfied with too little. It apparently isn't enough to just gallop sideways at the FEI levels, *balance* (pfft) is necessary. Oh and *collection* which Rico and I agree is just way too much, I mean come on. Once as we had such necessary things, the half pass felt as good as a half pass can feel (I hate half pass and even the good ones feel like rolling a bag of potatoes across the diagonal). Then Tracey had us straighten and ride forward to the change. One was merely acceptable, since I didn't have much time to prepare and I didn't go forward quick enough. The next one in each direction was very good so we ended there.

I have a lot of homework before Saturday, when I'm driving out to her barn to ride the actual test. Then I have a lesson Tuesday and the show next Sunday!


In other news, I teach a lesson this morning and then go to school for my third day! I had an essay due yesterday and have ten chapters to read by next week so I should probably get off of the internet and make an attempt at being a graduate student. 

Moving Up

This will be short! I'm absolutely one hundred thousand percent exhausted from day two of CDS JR/YR Championships at which I had FOUR yes FOUR students competing. I'm aware that isn't a crowd but it's been exhausting nonetheless Yesterday I had a total of eleven tests to prepare the girls for (but we had a two hour break for lunch and shopping so it didn't seem that bad). Today I had a total of ten tests but no break so I was in the warm up from 11 to 5 before awards at 5:15. Luckily we had a big breakfast because I had a bit of watermelon and a cookie for lunch! Tomorrow we just have my two individual students competing and then awards so PHEW. 

Despite my complaining (it's late, I'm tired), I've had an absolute BALL and my students are doing exceptionally well.

Anyway I'm really excited about something having to do with Rico and I that couldn't wait-

I have officially done the following things:
1. bought a white back brace to wear under a shadbelly
2. ordered a shadbelly (that had BETTER FIT, it's a size smaller than I had originally wanted but the original size was a tad large anyway)
3. SIGNED UP FOR PRIX ST GEORGE IN SEPTEMBER!

As I've made fairly clear in the past- I've competed and done fine at this level. BUT I have never competed on a horse that I trained myself. Even Tracey mentioned this at my last lesson. She said that I'd had the schoolmaster who was GREAT for me, but this is a big deal to be showing St George on a horse I trained! I don't feel like I've trained him myself, I've certainly had a LOT of amazing people helping me along the way, but she's right, he is technically *my* first FEI horse.

Who would have thought? A fair amount of people, I think...

I've been waiting for this for eight and a half years and now we're two weeks away! I can't wait to share this with him. Hopefully he keeps his shit together and doesn't add too much silliness to the test. Also hopefully I don't pass out.



Updates about JRs, Graduate school, and other fantastic things in my life after I recover from this weekend :)

An Amazing Lesson

My lesson today was exceptionally good! I've always *wanted* to go to lessons, I really look forward to them. But I know that when I'm on edge like I was today, sometimes lessons are really difficult. I warned Tracey as I walked in that I was a little on edge today. My farrier was supposed to shoe him and didn't, so I was paranoid about his feet. My vet has made it clear that if Rico goes too long without having his toes chopped off, he could suffer a second career ending injury which may turn out to be an ACTUAL career ending injury this time.

I also had a bit of a shock to my entire system because I had graduate school orientation yesterday and it really sunk in what I've gotten myself into. Yikes. I'm trying not to think about it.

Anyway the point of the lesson today was to find out if Tracey thought that Rico and I were ready for not going to embarrass ourselves at Prix St George for the September YY show. I've been so back and forth about this (as is apparent in my last several posts) and decided to leave it up to Tracey. She tends to be a little conservative so I was expecting her to laugh at me.

We started out with some walk pirouettes and a bit of pirouette canter before leaping head first into the pirouettes. I need to end the walk pirouettes a step earlier, since I tend to ride 200 degree turns rather than 180 degree ones. The pirouette canter is funny and I need to practice it a LOT, like more than the actual pirouettes. I tend to ride the pirouette canter like I'm trying to stop a large truck. I lean back, pull back, and slow him down to the point where he starts "rocking" which is what I was going for. Evidently, rocking is NOT collection and I was scolded for it.

The level of collection I need is MUCH less than it feels. It's already been established that I'm completely out of touch with what is going on under me with this horse, so I totally believe her. I need to focus more on activity than collection at this point.

The pirouettes were large, but Tracey said he's clearly on his way to figuring them out and knowing that he had a back injury just two weeks ago, she was very pleased. She even said good a few times during the pirouettes and I'm not going to lie, it was such a surprise to hear someone say "good" while I was doing a pirouette that I definitely got distracted. At one point she said "that was good," about a left pirouette that I then heard "that was terrible" once I did the change.

The left pirouette is tricky, he tends to suck back and I tend to delude myself into thinking it's good. The right pirouette is difficult for me since I tend to lean way off to the side and pull him around. I didn't do that tonight (since the headphones were so tight that if I turned my head too much, they'd come out... I think I will use this at home!) and it was surprisingly good. Tracey thinks the right one is a lot more correct and will eventually be better which was a shock to me! The left has always been so good acceptable!

After the pirouettes we touched on the canter half pass zig zag. Apparently I rush it and don't value bend enough. Once as I slowed down, collected him, and bent, it became quite nice! Tracey wants it to eventually be quicker in the change of bend and the lead change, but she wasn't too annoyed about it once as we fixed it.

Once we were through those two main issues, I asked the big question. "Am I completely stupid to sign up for Prix St George in two weeks?"

NO! She said no! I'm not *completely* stupid then. Basically she said that we were clearly green at the level, but that it's FINE to be green. You have to start somewhere. We're not going to have a clean test, we may not score in the 60s (she said it would depend on my trot work being straight 7s and not totally botching the tempis), but we should have a good day.


I'm shocked and full of joy at the same time! I can't believe we're almost there. Prix St George (despite already having my Silver Medal thanks to Leo the most magnificent horse ever) has been a HUGE goal of mine on Rico. There was always such a big block for that level and now we're SO close.

I have a white back brace on order now (since I don't like putting my black one under my white pants, so not fashionable). Then I'm ordering a shadbelly and signing up for the show tomorrow.


Tomorrow I also start school! As I said, orientation scared the crap out of me but I think I'll be okay. I'll be just fine. Fine. We're all going to be fine. Do you know how much I heard that at orientation? That's probably the reason why I'm a bit anxious. Why did they feel the need to tell us to calm down and why did they use the word fine so damn much??

Back to Full Work!

Rico went back to full work yesterday and today! Yesterday I just touched on everything from Prix St George to see where we were at and then today I drilled the canter work (esp the pirouettes).

THIS HORSE IS SO COOL! Let me explain in too many details why:

I mean he's had over a month off now, just kind of chilling while I obsess over all sorts of things including his soundness, his fitness, the amount of muscle he lost, his weight, whether I should bed his stall deeper, where I should put him when I go to Boston (this one is pretty much solved- my neighbor has offered me a stall at their amazing facility that I drool over on a regular basis), etc. Obsessing over horses should be an Olympic sport, seriously.

One of the main things on my mind was the amount of muscle he'd lose being off for so long. I was especially worried that he'd lose the strength to do the pirouettes, which he had been struggling with anyway. Well, this horse is freakish in that he seems to have gained strength in the pirouettes while not doing them for a month. Maybe what I should do is just trail ride him for three months, then enter him in a Grand Prix. That seems to be what it takes to train this horse!

In truth I think that it's that I've been working immensely hard to fix my riding, to loosen up on the left rein, to sit down on my right seat bone, etc. Today the pirouettes felt easy to me, like my body position was just THERE, I wasn't fighting it at all. And he responded by giving me the BEST PIROUETTES EVER! In the real world that I outright refuse to live in, they were probably not so great- he did over-collect a bit to the left and the right was a little lean-y. But for a horse that just came off of a rehab, YAY!

He also maintained his ability to do lateral work, provided that I stay in the middle of the tack. Evidently, it seems that sitting way off to one side and pulling on one rein to assure that I don't fall off is NOT the best way to execute a shoulder-in. On a somewhat related note, my horse is exceptionally tolerant of such tomfoolery and actually did give me something that resembled a shoulder-in despite my poor riding.  I'm fairly convinced that he just reads my mind and humors my silly humanness.

(as an aside, I had a student once that asked me "do horses think we're as cute as we think they are" and I am kind of thinking that it's somewhat true. I think he thinks it's adorable that I try to ride him... that's probably not what she meant, but still!)

The half pass zig zag is resiliently there. I seem to remember writing about how awful it was and then how it just magically became amazing overnight (certainly not my doing). He probably stayed up late that night thinking about what my flapping meant and came up with the zig zag. What a genius. I totally forgot it used to be a weak movement so I just rode it and of course he was brilliant. He was so on every single time. Have I mentioned how amazing this horse is? Not nearly enough, I'm sure.


So the plan for this fall: I'm feeling really really good for Prix St George on September 8th and then continuing at the same level in October at Greenville and maybe in November at Starr Vaughn.

I need to talk to Tracey about it though. Tracey (who tends to be more conservative than myself of course) will likely not want to support my return to the FEI ring so soon since we're going to be rather weak for the level. But I was thinking about it today and I just want to get the first one over with sooner rather than later. I want to buy that damn pretty shadbelly and canter up centerline even if I'm completely unprepared and the judge visibly cringes at me as I ride through the movements.

I just feel like HE is ready. I'm probably not ready, my abilities aren't as reliable as Rico's are, but I'm ready to make an attempt at it.  Besides, I already decided that next year is the big PSG year. Next year we're going to work hard to score well, to go to championships, and maybe to even do a CDI. This year is about learning new things and experiencing having my wonderful horse back for *almost* an entire season.


In non-horsey news, tomorrow I have my departmental orientation!! Then Tuesday I work in the morning and ride with Tracey in the evening, Wednesday is work in the morning and my first day of graduate school, Thursday I ride in the morning and then head to Elk Grove, Friday through Sunday is CDS JR/YR Championships! More on that later but I'm super stoked :)

It's going to be a long week (including today where I got up at 5:30am to head to Lodi for several hours at Dressage in the Almonds, then went to Woodside for 5 hours of work before returning home to ride Rico at 8pm), but it's going to be amazing.

PS no pictures because apparently blogger doesn't think that pictures are necessary. Either way I don't really have any interesting ones yet. I have a bunch I'm editing currently so I may add some later :)

Two Field Trips

I hit a wall yesterday at work. It wasn't even that work was bad, or that something dramatic happened. But I'm just so done with this job. I'm not done with my wonderful clients or their wonderful horses, but the job itself is just too much for me. I really hope graduate school turns out to relieve the stress rather than just intensifying it... yeah that's likely. 

However, instead of getting into how much I'd love to stop being around horses all the time, let me gush about my horse! 

Monday afternoon I took Rico over to Harvey Bear for the second time ever. The trails are gorgeous, I've hiked them several times on foot and have been dying to take Rico out there. However, Rico has not been allowed to climb hills because of his propensity to injure himself. The last hill he climbed was the one up from the beach in late 2009. Then he went lame for several years and my vet recommended against any hill work. 

He's the ornery looking one on the right

Well, I'm sorry, if this horse is doing Prix St George in three weeks (is he? seriously will someone make this decision for me so I can focus on not vomiting?), he can handle a bit of a slope. 

He had a BLAST. He's the best trail horse in the world and I'm not just saying that because he's mine. Okay part of it is probably because he's mine and he can do no wrong. First, he's just overall great in new places- he never gets anxious about it and the worst behavior I've ever had him exhibit has been a flat out refusal to get back in the trailer to go home. 

Second, he's the least spooky horse I've ever ridden. Now, don't get me wrong, I too know the name of this blog, but the silliest thing about this horse is that he *pretends* to spook all the time. He spooks at any and all things that he deems different, however he's not actually afraid of anything. My rule for fear in horses is this: if I can't feel their heartbeat through the saddle, they aren't actually afraid. So he's quite a fearless horse. Except pigs, he's legitimately terrified of pigs. 

Pigless hills!

Third, HE LOVES IT! I'm not the biggest fan of trail riding. If I had a horse I couldn't trail ride or didn't like it, I'd be fine with it. I can get my trail fix by hiking (and get in better shape at the same time!) and I find that the sandbox is a lot more entertaining. But Rico had so much fun out there that it just made my heart melt. He's been through so much the last few years, and coming back into work as a performance horse meant that he was even further bubble wrapped... it was great to finally let him have a good time without an agenda.

So stoked to climb hills!

Trail riding clearly still on his mind, we went to our first lesson since his most recent injury on Tuesday night! The horse was NOT amused. 

Throughout the lesson, he tossed his head, refused to stop, tripped, pretended to need to cough and then trot around with his nose on the ground, bucked, stopped randomly, and was generally as done with the lesson as I was with my job yesterday. Except that I like to think that I handle myself better in times of frustration. 

The good news is that Tracey said these words to me: "I'm really impressed that you-" uh let's just stop there and evaluate. By the time she was half way through the sentence I didn't care what followed. She could have said "I'm really impressed that you managed to put on pants today, you seem to be unaware that you take lessons in the nude," or "I'm really impressed that you have the cognitive capability to hold a conversation with me, you seem to be a useless lump while riding, nice job!" 

Anyway what she said was that she was impressed that I put in the time/effort to fix the fact that I pull on the left rein like I'm trying to start a stubborn chain saw when I have no idea how to fix the problems that occur when I don't pull on that damn rein.

I'm a trainer, so I see these things in my clients too. The most typical one I deal with is a rider who crosses their hand over the neck to get a horse to bend that way (I do the opposite actually). The horse starts to lean so the rider pulls more. The solution is to let go, but the rider feels that when they do let go, their horse falls in so they apply the rein again. Soon there's a viscous circle which becomes harder and harder to fix. I can see how it's a good thing that I'm happy to allow shit to hit the fan. 

The lesson focused a fair amount on picking up all the shit that had been dispersed by the fan in the last month. The left lead canter was definitely the most difficult for me. I tend to do many wrong things all at the same time. Tracey began a continuous string of instructions in my ear (which I came home and wrote down!) and eventually we had a really great canter to the left. Rico was unamused and kept popping his haunches up to bump me out of alignment. Jerk! But I sat back down and "plugged in" to the saddle and eventually he admitted defeat and cantered beautifully. 


I had NO idea how it was going to be in my rides on Wednesday and Thursday... having mirrors and Tracey in my ear seems necessary for my successes that day, but surprisingly I was able to maintain the good work at home for the last two days! Yay! 

Today I'm considering another trail ride, but I'm eager to put the double back on and touch briefly on everything from Prix St George so I can figure out if Yarra Yarra isn't the stupidest idea in the world. 

I don't think I'll be upset if I score in the high 50s, so provided that we can perform all of the movements to some kind of accuracy at home, I think I want to go... I'm sick of referring to my horse as "my future FEI horse" or "my almost FEI horse" or "my asshole horse who won't stay sound enough to become an FEI horse." At least after September I can refer to him as my FEI horse which still may be totally inappropriate if we get a 45% on our test. But I don't care, he'll my FEI horse. 

I still might chicken out :)