The Penny is Dropping

I definitely had to come home and look up that idiom. 

After such a successful weekend with Rico, I was so so so excited to ride with Tracey tonight. It turned out to be a VERY cold night (keep in mind that I'm located in California so my coldness perception is a tad off) and although Rico has grown back most of his coat, he certainly was feeling about a third his age.

Last winter the horse was much less fit and
much more docile!

I got there and tacked up quickly since my lessons are at 5:30 and it gets dark at 5:15! I arrived early so I sat on the mounting block and watched part of the lesson before me.

I got on and knew immediately that I might hit the dirt. It wasn't as bad as Starr Vaughn but boy the horse was on fire. He kept sticking his head to his chest and charging around. When I brought his poll up, he'd crow hop so he could put it back down and charge some more. Ughhh.

He worked out of it a bit and I got some decent work done before we started the lesson. However, we took too long talking about the Alfredo clinic and Rico was feeling high again. We started in canter with the intention of doing some changes and Rico was NOT having it. Tracey asked me to canter down the long side and I said "I'm going to stay off the rail so I don't get bucked off" and then the horse ducked his left shoulder and spun right away from the rail. Tracey laughed and said "I don't know if that is going to help!"

After some kicking changes (despite me keeping him so straight and not swinging my leg too far back, ugh), Tracey and I talked again. She said she's at a loss for why he's kicking and thinks that there are several reasons why he does it.

Old theories:
- there is definitely a straightness element involved, when he gets too much over his right shoulder (which is his tendency in general), he kicks
- there is definitely a problem with my body, I swing my shoulders and legs too much and throw him off balance

New theories:
- I don't keep him up to the bridle enough
- my timing is too fast with my legs sometimes so he hurries to do his changes and ends up kicking

We worked on a cool exercise that Tracey learned from Conrad Schumacher. We cantered on a 20 meter circle and, maintaining the bend, asked for lead changes at every point (so every quarter of the circle, we'd change). This helped a LOT and showed us that he tends to get behind me and/or on the forehand and then we lose throughness.

I'm so frustrated by this change! I feel like it's slowing us down a LOT in terms of trying to score well at PSG and in moving up the levels. There's no way we can do 2 tempis (I1) or the ones (I2/GP) with this damn change. HOWEVER, I'm glad to be learning SO much about flying changes! After Rico and I get through this, there isn't going to be a horse I can't put a flying change on.


After the changes, we worked on the passage.

I was so pleased with Rico in terms of the passage today!! Tracey was also pleased, she noted that she hadn't had a horse catch onto passage this soon after learning. She also said that he showed a lot of promise in the movement. I'm incredibly bias, but I can really see that this horse has some pretty great talent in the passage. He's always liked to prance around like an idiot, and now I'm praising him for it!

I learned a few things. First, when I ask, I need to slow wayyyy down. I'm rushing him in the passage and am asking for too much ground cover so a lot of the time I'm getting a kind of knee-heavy trot instead. Second, I need to SIT. THE FUCK. DOWN. I tend to do the cha-cha while asking for passage and Tracey said that it's only going to confuse and frustrate my poor horse.

Third, I need to not get impatient about this whole thing. Just like in the pirouettes, I'm holding him to the Grand Prix standard rather than the green-horse standard. Tracey said "the penny hasn't dropped yet, it's in the process of dropping." And I promptly smiled, nodded, and zipped home to look it up online. Basically he hasn't been completely confirmed in the passage yet, so until then, my expectations need to be very low!

Would dropping all these pennies at
once help?

After the passage we worked on a bit of trot half pass, trying to get me to use my inside leg. I'm proud to say that to the left, I can actually use BOTH of my legs! Shocking that leaning off to the outside and flailing about ISN'T the correct aid for half pass.

To the right, however, my inside leg remains completely useless. I literally could amputate my right leg, replace it with a dead fish, and likely ride better than I do now. Ugh! But getting it right to the left gives me hope!! So it's right half pass boot camp for me this week :)