Piaffe and Passage at Home

I moved Rico home this weekend! I was set to move him home in a couple of weeks but I realized that this semester was only going to get worse and I really just wanted my pony home.

And there are pictures!

LOTS of pictures!

So he's back! And with the arena being so close and my mom feeling sorry for me because I've been going a little crazy with school, I convinced her to come out and take some pictures of us on Sunday.

I haven't seen pictures or video of us since he was an ass at Starr Vaughn. He was a little bit of an ass today so I was hopeful and not disappointed.

He's really looking like an FEI horse now! I'm looking a little slouchy, but I was in a really bad mood so I don't blame myself for looking like shit. I normally sit up a little better (not significantly though, my bad mood is no excuse).

Such an amazing animal

Schooling some pirouettes

Unfortunately "green" piaffe and passage photograph a bit awkwardly! So I was only able to get a few shots that didn't look completely stupid and here they are:

Passage- his neck gets a tad short at the moment

Passage, this is more like it!

A bit of piaffe

More piaffe

This is the current state of the piaffe to passage transition...

And sometimes this happens

More passage, you can see he's still struggling with how to
do this movement... he looks a little different in each picture

Piaffe

He's so boingy

Once as I realized the piaffe and passage weren't going to be all that pretty, I just got some regular trot and canter pictures.

Look at his neck!

 

Such a sweet animal 

Looking kind of baroque...?

Rico has been doing really well back home. He has a much bigger paddock and gets to graze twice a day for ten minutes. He needs to eat down what used to be his dirt patch so he can have that area to roll in (and then he will be bathed regularly, he gets so dirty). His best friend, Dandy, was SUPER excited to see him, whinnying and trotting around. As I drove out on the way to school today, I saw them chewing on each other, so cute!

I'm also really happy since it takes my commute down quite a bit. Today after crossfit I just came home and relaxed for a half hour before dragging the arena and riding. It was sooo nice to not be in a huge rush.

Getting pretty beefy

The arena, however, is much smaller. I got spoiled at Woodmyst with even the covered arena which is bigger than my arena at home. Today I had major issues trying to find a diagonal line to do some 2s on without careening off into a corner. I'm looking forward to my lesson tomorrow to get back in a bigger arena with mirrors!

Need mirrors so I have something other than his neck to
look at...

But overall I'm super happy. I love seeing him outside my window and I love having more control over how much shavings he gets, when the arena is dragged/watered, what he gets fed, etc. I'm not sure if it's obvious or not, but I'm a huge kind of a control freak.

Oh and we finally have a show schedule decided! At the end of May, we'll be doing either one or two Intermediare I's at Gilroy Gaits. Then at the end of June we'll do another Intermediare I at Yarra Yarra. Then it's a few short weeks before our first Grand Prix (possibly, depends on I1 scores) in mid-July. I'm super stoked to get this horse back in the show ring :)
 

Kind of running away with me

That's better

Love riding this horse!

Blog Hop: Appreciating What You Have

I haven't yet done one of these but the topic was perfect timing for my difficult rides the last few days. Rico is struggling with the idea of being reliably FORWARD and I'm at a loss with how I'm supposed to generate this energy without getting after him so much. It seems like unless I give him a HUGE kick or a swat with the whip, he's just like nah. What I need is a lesson... but Tracey is out of town this week so I'm stuck with myself!

What better time to appreciate the positive things about Rico, since there are a lot of them! Thanks to Viva Carlos for the blog hop
.

- He's bombproof, he spooks occasionally but only for fun and if you tell him to stop, he'll stop. I can walk him down a busy road and not worry about a thing.

Omg a  horse eating plant!

- He ground ties pretty perfectly, I use this every day while I tack him up and untack him. Other than to get shoes, I don't think he's been tied up in a LONG time.

It works well for impromptu conformation shots! Ignore the
ill-fitting halter...

- He has a sense of humor. He's so freaking silly, he plays games with me (like the "I'm gunna escape" game where he opens his door and then slowly takes little steps out until I tell him to stop)

- He's incredibly trainable. There's no other reason why I've been able to get him this far. He learned his piaffe and passage unreasonably quickly and we're looking at going from his first PSG to his first GP in under a year.

First Alfredo clinic

- He's a really nice mover. He floats over the ground, especially now that he has his passage!

So floaty

- He is also a really nice jumper, but we're not utilizing this talent anymore.

Maybe again someday...

- He is the exact same horse everywhere. I could take him absolutely anywhere and jump on him bareback in the hackamore and wander around. I should take him to school with me...

- There is nothing he won't put up with. I can body clip him while he's ground tied, I can load him in the LEAST pony club way possible and he'll still get in the trailer, I can tie him to anything, including handing his rope to my dog who will play tug of war with him and drag Rico around. I can stand on his back and sit on his butt, I can "ride the furry slide" which isn't as dirty as it sounds (basically I can slide off his butt), I can throw stuff at him (his boots, brushes, cookies, bags of stuff, saddle pads, etc) and he just looks at me curiously.

Such a good pony

Such a tolerant horse

Rico says, "what?"

All of this good stuff makes me really appreciate the time I have with him. Three years ago tomorrow was my very first ride on him after I had retired him. April 24th, 2011. I had just moved home and was still competing Leo. I had hung out with Rico a bit but that day I decided to throw him in the trailer and take him over to Thorson's arena right around the corner.

I didn't have a dressage saddle so I put on the bareback pad. I walked a bunch, trotted a little, and cantered a bit. He was sound, went right on the bit, and I got to feel him canter for the first time in nearly a year. That was the day that I started rehabbing him. Had you told me how far we would have made it when I sat on him that day, I'd have never believed it!

A picture from that first day :) 

So Much To Do... So Little Time

So much to do and so little time is the phrase that keeps coming out of my mouth these days. I knew this semester was going to end badly and I'm approaching the ending. We still have so much to do. And there's so little time.

This is Rubis (Ruby), she's taking over my blog today with
pictures from last month that I forgot to post!

So cute!

Also some ranch pictures

Let me bitch for a sec and then we'll get onto the subject of Rico!

I'm taking three classes. One is multivariate statistics and as much as I LOVE this class, it's the hardest class I've ever taken. In the past if I put in a little effort, As were not difficult to get. This is the sort of class though, where I put in ten times the effort I've ever put into anything in my life and I get a B. We have two exams (one midterm and one final) and a paper due before the end of the semester and it's going to be brutal.

I'm also taking a social psychology seminar. I really enjoy this class too, the readings are super interesting and my teacher is hilarious. In this class we have a research project, a presentation, and a take home final to do still. Experimental psychology isn't my favorite class, mostly because it's very similar to two other experimental methods class. We have a huge paper, a slightly less huge paper, a presentation, and a final exam left in that class.

So much to do! So little time!

At least I have this flying dog to hang out with

I'm also feeling this on Rico. We have so much for Grand Prix. We need to nail down a bunch of the harder movements (half pass zig zag, pirouettes, passage) and we need to get the ones and the piaffe MUCH better since those are our weakest movements at the moment.

There's so little time, as I'm really craving Rico's retirement right now. It makes it worse that I use this as a way to procrastinate. I think about all the fun things we could be doing if it didn't matter if he stayed sound. I LOVE trail riding and we have some fantastic trails up here, but most of them are VERY steep. My vet says he can't climb hills. I've cheated a little and let him go up a few hills, but I'm afraid of doing the long trail rides that I want to do because what if that's what it takes to injure him permanently? I'd be really irritated!

OMG A BALL!

Not that I'm complaining about having this horse even if I'm stuck in the sandbox! Let me tell you about the two successes I've had recently that make me feel like Grand Prix is close. One of these breakthroughs I actually noticed and one I was dumb enough not to realize until recently.

The one I noticed was that, with all the crazy half pass work we've been doing, the zig zag is becoming MUCH easier! Especially when Rico stays in front of me. The problem is that he will suck back in the change. I've been practicing the St George pattern- just one zig and one zag. After the change I send him forward for two big steps before I collect again.

Love this dog

The other day I wanted to ride the Grand Prix pattern (since I gave my 30 days notice and want to take advantage of riding in the big ring). I've ridden it in the past on Rico and it's been rough. I've always missed a change or had an unclean one or had him run off with me. Well, this time... it was clean!! With my new two big steps after each change technique, I found it much more rideable!

WE HAVE A ZIG ZAG!!! It's not pretty... but it's clean! Now I just need to pretty it up and get it a little more reliable and *poof* another movement down.

Rubis: consumer of the finest grasses

Delicious

The other breakthrough is stupid. So I'm kind of lazy. I don't like sitting the trot. Sounds stupid right? I'm a dressage rider, sitting the trot should be my favorite thing EVER. I should live and breathe sitting the trot. I loath it. Luckily I have a horse whose strength is his trot work, so I get to do a lot of canter and force myself to sit the trot enough to get through a test without looking like I'm going to pass out.

This laziness means that I do everything to avoid having to sit the trot if I'm not actively making myself.

To avoid sitting the trot, I've been working on the passage primarily from the walk. Remember how a few months ago I was stressing because Rico couldn't walk to passage and instead was rearing? I dunno *when* this happened, but Rico has a GOOD walk to passage transition now. Not because I've been actively working on it, but because I've been actively avoiding having to sit the trot.

Now when I shorten my reins and put my leg slightly forward, that horse pops right up into passage from a walk. That's insanity! So we now have a movement that I'm really excited to do in the test because I know it's going to be awesome. It's a quadruple coefficient, right? Along with the new collective they just added to the FEI tests this year entitled "rider did not pass out, burst into tears, or vomit during test." Because I'm going to try for a solid 7 on that one.

 Alright more Rubis pictures...

She's so long and lean right now

She's not much of a retriever...

Coordination!

Where's it going?!

So cute!

We get some pretty roses out here

Garden fence with the barn in the background

Running after yet another ball

So many balls, so little time!

Reliably Forward

I finally linked my dropbox to my phone so I have easy access to all my pictures that I take on a regular basis here on my computer! That means yay more pictures! Throughout this post will be a few of the horse-y ones (and a few others) that I've taken in the last few weeks.

Also before this starts, I want to brag about my boyfriend who rode my old horse, Stretch, this weekend. In his second ride ever (first ride was being led around on Rico), he CANTERED. What is that shit? It takes me weeks and weeks of expensive lessons and hard work to learn a new thing and he just gets on and canters around like a pro. No fair.

Alright back to this post!

My barn has the best sunsets!

So it turns out that I'm a laziness enabler. Want to be lazy? Come hang out with me, I'll do all your work for you while you laze about. I'll even praise you for what little work you do end up getting around to and will blame myself for anything you do wrong.

Xena is my assistant

I've been going a bit nuts working on half pass boot camp for a few weeks now. It's getting much much much better but yesterday I had a massive realization that in working on the lateral work, I've lost a lot of the forward.

Rico's cool with that. And so am I (apparently). In fact, I'm totally happy to get off of Rico, let him sit on MY back and play with my iphone while I do the lateral work for him.

Rico says "Thanks Mom!"

That's not going to work if we want to do anything more than western pleasure (Rico is totally up for a discipline change and think he looks cute in a western saddle). So yesterday I worked on maintaining energy in all of our movements and it really paid off. My new mantra is RELIABLY FORWARD. Meaning that I need to NEVER second guess whether he's going to stay in the gait and in the level of collection/roundness I'm asking for. That thought is not allowed to cross my mind.

Tonight we had a lesson with Tracey and I told her of my new found ability to ride confidently forward. She said "I've been telling you that for months." It's true.

I think what really hit me, and I talked with her about this, is that when Rico is forward into my hand and hot to my leg, he's FUCKING SCARY. Not because he's naughty, he's the best horse in the world. I've had him for over 9 years and know for certain that I'm NOT coming off of him unless I do something really dumb or unless he falls.

The world's sweetest animal

But damn, when the thirteen hundred pound holsteiner who seems to be made of pure muscle and power sits down in a canter, leaps up over his back into a firm contact, and one twitch of my leg means an extended canter... THAT IS SO SCARY. Every time I ride that canter I think I'm going to pee my pants. I can't possibly explain how scary it is. It takes everything in my power not to pull him back to a less impressive canter. And this is a horse I trust! How do people ride this on horses that WOULD buck you off if they wanted.

That's why I've been kind of sabotaging us. I'm comfortable with a lazy horse. Having to nag a horse forward is so safe. Welp, as Pam Nelson said last week when I went to see her horses for sale for a client, "you never see a horse without an engine at the upper levels, it doesn't happen." So Rico, you're getting an engine, damnit! Even if your rider wets herself.

Its not like we're doing this coffin complex into the court
which doesn't make me nervous, wtf?

With our new powerful gaits, we jumped into the pirouette work. I don't do the pirouettes much on my own because I tend to mess them up. Tracey gave me some great progressive exercises. We started with just establishing a good canter on the circle and moving forward and back between a forward collected canter and a pirouette canter.

I need to not push the pirouette canter too collected, especially when he's so energetic, because it takes away from the energy. The pirouette itself will collect the canter, so I can keep more ground cover than I think I need.

With this in mind, we started riding a square with two quarter pirouettes in two of the corners. So every other corner was a corner (which I sucked at riding) and every other corner was a quarter pirouette (which I was better at for some unexplainable reason). In both directions I needed to let go of the left rein, put my inside leg on, and keep him up to my outside rein.

We then did the half pirouettes from Prix St George. Turns out that I kind of just drift into them. I fixed that problem and he shut down. Rico says that unless he gets to do them on his terms, he doesn't want to do them. Too bad! So we fixed that.

Why can't we just trail ride?

We then played a tad with the trot work, Tracey wanted to see my half passes since I've been borderline obsessing over working on them. She was pretty impressed even with the quality of trot we had, and so was I! Rico was SUPER forward and into my hand which again was mildly terrifying but in a good way. We did a half pass in both directions and other than saying "sit to the inside," Tracey only had good things to say! At the end she was like "you were whining and moaning so much about them last time, now they look great!" Sorry Tracey.

Then we did a bit of passage just to add some upward lift to his trot. Rico was tired, and I am going to work on getting him more fit, but the passage he gave me was very forward into the bridle so Tracey was happy. In the past he's sucked way back and I've had less control.

Seriously pretty skies!

Overall I was SUPER pleased with the lesson. But I wasn't going to let Tracey leave without asking her this awkwardly phrased question:

"Uh so I have a question. With it in mind that I don't have too many more months left with this horse and I don't care about my record or his and I want to get my gold on him before he gets hurt or I run out of money... What is the timeline for Grand Prix I should plan on?"

Apparently that was brave! But Tracey was super nice about it. She said fall! THIS FALL!! We have the following to deal with:
- The one tempis, Rico needs them, we're doing them next lesson (side note, Rico now has THREE in a row pretty regularly! Heidi said we needed six before we went GP so we're half way there, right??)
- The pirouettes need to be much better
- The zig zag will be the bane of my existence
- The passage and piaffe obviously need to be better

But honestly, that's it! His 2s have been super reliable, although slightly hollow, the trot work is coming along very nicely, and I can't help but to think that the energy we're now drilling into both of us can only make all this work easier.

So, there's a chance that I'll have my USDF Gold Medal on a horse I trained myself by the end of this year. Unbelievable.

My neighbor's longhorn cows are back after winter vacation!

So cute!!