Labor on Labor Day

Rico and I had our second-to-last lesson before the show yesterday!

I got off work a tad early so had time to bathe him beforehand (he is in a perpetual state of dirtiness which I sometimes feel embarrassed about enough to wash him). As I was bathing him, I noticed a LARGE amount of hair coming off of him.

Oh god. It's coming.

Rico has the thickest winter coat I've ever had the unfortunate experience of clipping. Suddenly, overnight it seems, he is growing hair like he was doused in rogaine. IT'S STILL AUGUST! When Rico gets hairy like this, he gets overheated and sometimes I can't even finish a ride because he's dripping in sweat and can't catch his breath. We can't go to this show all mammoth-style.

I asked Heidi if she thought I should clip him before the show. At first she said maybe wait until Tuesday to decide. But then she said yes once as he was dripping in sweat and his respiratory system wasn't recovering very well.

So tomorrow my labor day is going to be spent clipping a certain horse bald so he can actually get through his test this weekend without passing out. Whyyyyyy.


Alright so we did still ride despite being so furry. We're kind of just doing ALL THE MOVEMENTS at all of our lessons these days, so my rides at home are turning into basics rides, working on throughness, energy, and straightness. That's all fine and dandy for me since I do struggle in my small arena to do the movements correctly.

My first and only Grand Prix on Leo May 2011!

We started with trot work and Heidi was happy with how the half passes looked! I'm learning to use the first corner by K and start the right half pass before the letter (since the judge really can't tell and one extra step before the letter REALLY helps me. The right one was really good this time, Heidi even said 7! We made it to B well before the letter so the changeover happened right as we passed it, perfect. The left one isn't as good, it's always either haunches leading or haunches trailing. Unfortunately I face the judge, so no mirror, but it's still a decent half pass and I'm hoping to grab a 6.5.

Look how the half passes have progressed!
This one June 2013 at 4-2

Woops, June 2013 at our second 4-2

October 2013 PSG

August 2014 Intermediare II (look how much better I sit!)

Then we played with the passage and piaffe. We wanted to come up with a technique of keeping Rico going through the piaffe and I think we found one. I've been using the whip in rhythm with the piaffe to get him to keep going, but I can't just tap him 15 times in that movement... So we tried the leg. No go, he keeps thinking passage. So I tried lighter and lighter spur aids and found one that works really well. I kind of have to bounce and move around on top of him to keep him going, which is kind of annoying, but if it works, it works. Heidi said solid 6.5-7 for the passage and ideally 6-6.5 for the piaffe. If he keeps going...

Passage August 2014 Intermediare II

We started the canter with the zig zag. It's good. But it's only good if I remember not to shoot off sideways in the good direction. Before I even get on at the show, I've been told I have to go look at the ring and decide how sideways I want to go. If I get in there cold, I zig around way too much and my zags can't make up for it. She said it COULD be a 7 but it's probably more like a 6-6.5 because of the lack of bend sometimes.

Then we played with the twos and extended canter. I'm not nearly GOING enough in the extended and I tend to come out of the corner counter bent (so he may change) so I'm going to play with the geometry at home and hope for at least a 6 with the comment "conservative." The twos are okayyyy. They aren't as straight as I'd like them to be and he needs to be pretty forward to make them decent, but we got a 6.5 on them last time so I'm hoping to maintain that as long as I remember to count!

Hopefully this show is not as sproingy

After that, we tackled the ones. They're bad. By the time we got to this point, he was tired. I have a theory that when his coffins are sore, he doesn't want to do them (they involve a lot of pulling with the front feet weirdly enough). This is why sometimes at the beginning of rides when he hasn't done a lot, he's more likely to do them, and why drilling the ones doesn't work with him. No matter what, after a certain number of ones, he refuses to even do lead changes. We kind of got to that place yesterday.

We schooled more medium trot than we normally do, lots of medium canter, and lots of twos. So by the time we start the ones, he's barely doing two in a row, let alone three. Heidi's technique is to start with two, then go three, then go four, etc. But the problem is that by the time we're even trying four, his tootsies are sore/tired/etc. I dunno. We both agreed that it would take a legitimate miracle to put 15 on by next week, so we're going to attack them after the show and hope for a 4 on them this show. I think I'll pull another 3.

Finally, we did the pirouettes. They are MUCH better than they used to be (especially taking into account that he was already very tired by this point) but I struggle in the set up. I always push the hind end too much in and then lose his shoulder. I push the hind end since when I try to straighten him, he wants to do changes. So my homework is to fix the set up. I'm to come up centerline, set him up in a shoulder-fore, do about eight steps of pirouette canter, then go forward, change, and set him up for the other one in a shoulder-fore with eight steps of pirouette canter. Heidi said solid 6.5 on the left one, and that if I ride the right one like I did yesterday, 6!

Left (good) pirouette June 2013 at 4-2

Right (bad) pirouette October 2013 at PSG

Left (good) pirouette June 2014 at Intermediare I

I'm obsessive, right? So I put in all of these scores into an excell document. 61.5%. I even put a 3 in the ones instead of a 4 and the right pirouette a 5 instead of a 6 since I think we're being silly to think I can actually execute those movements at their best in the show ring. This score is really going to depend on getting 6s on the piaffes and the transitions. We'll see...

I have hope! We have one more lesson before the show, and at that lesson we're going to try out my warm up from Greenville. Heidi said we should plan on doing all the lateral work at the walk instead of the trot and canter to conserve energy. She also agreed to no ones and no pirouettes. We're doing a few minutes in walk to get the half passes aligned and pick out how the zig zag will ride. Then a little trot and canter to get energy. Passage and one piaffe to get my legs doing their job. A couple of small canter circles and a line of twos. That's it. Then the test. That's terrifying.

I'll be incredibly happy to be done!

But to be honest, it would be terrifying even if I was given several months in the warm up ring.

Picking Up Points

Rico and I had our first lesson after I injected my tuition into four of his joints.

The last couple of days I've been taking it relatively easy on him, not wanting to push him, but I knew that we were getting back into it today because we're only a few rides out from our next show and we're feeling the pressure.

For funzies- some of our first months back to dressage after
his "career ending injury"

Between now and this show, we're working on picking up points wherever we can. It's a lot more about coming up with a plan on how to get through the movements without losing points rather than how to perform the movements better. Sometimes you have to take a step back to improve, but we're not doing that until after the show. Right now, we're focusing on each individual movement and how to get the best out of Rico and I given what we can do currently.

The first ride

We started with the trot pattern (minus extended paces since we shouldn't be doing lots of those). After the first extended trot, you half pass from K to B, then from B to H, then halt at C, proceed trot, and do another medium into the passage.

The half passes are STEEP. We DO them, but they're not great. Today we discovered several things. One is that his right half pass is a lot less steep than the left. Meaning that I'm hitting B late and having to make up time. Unfortunately if I hit B after a certain point, I can't make up that time. We also discovered that the whip REALLY helps, so I'm planning on having my whip in my left hand to hurry the right one and then the left one will be fine.

The halt, rein back, and trot on is perfect. Heidi was impressed. Little does she know, the horse HATED rein backs when I got him. He soon realized if he reared, he didn't have to rein back since eighteen year old Megan wasn't all too thrilled with a horse that stood up. We worked the SHIT out of this on the ground and he now rein backs VERY well. You literally just sit lighter in the tack and squeeze your hand and he shoots backwards. Nice.

Yeah I didn't have a saddle anymore so I had to ride bareback

We skipped all the extended paces and went right into the passage, first from the trot, then schooling the second tour which starts from walk. It helps SO much that my lessons go in the order of the test for the most part, since then I can work on memorization (because this shit is LONG yo). I'm so intimidated by the test that I can barely keep it memorized so this really helps.

The walk to passage was downright good. I need to remember to use my corner better, so that I can plan. I also shouldn't be telling stories as I ask him to passage since I apparently don't multitask well. The passage was great today, he's much more even behind but he still has a tendency to not snap that right hind up so I need to tap his right hind. This means that between the half passes and the passage (one short side and a medium trot), I need to switch my whip!

The piaffe was pretty good today. This week we can really push the piaffe but next week I'm going to do the minimum to let him recover. I think we drilled it too much before the last show and that's why he stopped. We have to do 12-15 steps per piaffe (3 of them) this show so I want to make sure he's feeling good.

A year or so later, trying to teach him to passage with ghetto
cavallettis- unsuccessful

After all of that, we did the half pass zig zag at the canter. We came up with a way to remember it (start and end on the left lead) and I was much better about keeping it even. Once again he wants to push his haunches right all the time so I'm going to leave the whip in the right hand for this movement.

Finally, we ended with the tempis. First with some threes which I totally fucked up because I'm kind of stupid and then doing some twos. The twos were good but kind of sideways so we worked them into the mirror. At the very end, we did some ones. The ones were great! He did FIVE of them in a row again! Heidi thinks that part of it is the sideways issue and that working the straightness in the twos made the ones better.

I want to believe it... but part of me thinks that his legs feel better and he's had a lot of time off from the ones to relax about them. So I'm pushing for minimal ones between now and the show.


Overall I'm SO HAPPY to have this horse back after the scare we had last week. Even if we just do this one show at Grand Prix, and even if we score in the 50s (or 40s whatever, I'm not putting any limits on how shitty we're allowed to be), it has still been an amazing journey with this amazing horse and I'm grateful for whatever happens next.

Can't wait for winter at the ranch :)
Green grass for the retired Grand Prix horse

A Quick Update

Rico is sound!!! He had better be after that awful vet bill... Hoping to stay sound for at least two weeks. And then after that for at least a couple months and THEN he can be lame for the rest of his life.

The most expensive animal....

Observations From Champs

I just returned from CDS JR/YR Championships and have a bit of time before I have to start getting ready for my first class this morning. 

Rico gets ridden for the first time in a week this afternoon, so I don't have any updates on him except that my mom says that he HATES it when the other horses get taken out but he doesn't. He's so spoiled in that he rarely has to stay in when the others go out and usually when he does stay in, he's already been ridden so isn't as keen to go out again. Poor pony. He's going to have to get used to that during his winter off!

I think he'll be fine... 

I do want to share some of the observations I made this weekend up at champs. Overall everyone rode beautifully and I was so proud of the kids for holding it together under pressure- the way champs works is that you ride two tests (usually test 2 and 3 of your level) and they average the scores. After the first day, your scores for your first test come out, along with the ranking. So you see where you stand and feel the pressure for the second day's test. Usually in dressage we go back to a clean slate after a test, but these girls had to hold onto that knowledge through the second ride.

One fun announcement I can make is that one of my kids won the same trophy I won TEN YEARS AGO when I was at this show! So cool, I was super stoked. Unfortunately my name isn't on it anymore, but I do have pictures of it in my house. 

Rico and I at Champs in 2006 for second level!

Over the course of the weekend, I did get the chance to see how other trainers ran their barns and was for the most part, impressed. I heard a lot of positive comments, which is nice when you're coaching teenagers. However, there was a trainer near us who did not impress us. I won't go into details about what specifically happened but here's some really basic advice that we learned:

1. Don't berate a client at a show! Don't lay into them about stuff that should have been addressed at home. Can't get the horse on the bit at home? Stop expecting it at shows. Counter canter loops only reliable 20% of the time? Stop expecting it at shows. 

2. Don't yell at your clients next to my barn. Granted, this made my students and their parents thank me profusely for being sane and not yelling. So please, yell at your clients next to my barn. 

3. Everyone has different goals. When your client says they just want to have fun, don't tell them that dressage isn't about having fun, it's about success. Also, the trainer next to you (me) will subsequently start telling her students to stop smiling and that dressage is horrifically boring and that they shouldn't be having fun. STOP SMILING DRESSAGE SHOULDN'T BE FUN IF I SEE YOU HAVING FUN I WILL LOSE MY SHIT. 

4. Everyone gets bad scores. Everyone knows what scores are bad. Everyone knows when they have a bad ride. Riding out of a test that you rode in a way that made the judge want to throw themselves out of the booth doesn't make you feel good. You know what else doesn't make you feel good? Having your trainer go over every single movement, telling you what you did wrong. I mean maybe she asked for it, but shit, give it a rest, the test was just over three minutes ago. 

NO SMILING

The other interesting observation I made was how the kids feel about other people having nicer horses than them. It got me thinking- riding is really unique. You can work your ASS off, you can be the hardest worker there ever was, but if your horse isn't nice enough, sound enough, or sane enough, you'll lose to the kid with the nicer, sounder, saner horse, sometimes even if that kid doesn't put in the effort. It sucks! This doesn't happen in like... soccer. If someone is a better soccer player than you, you don't hear "well their ball is better than mine." I mean maybe you do, I don't know soccer, but it seems less likely. 

This leads to people making excuses for themselves and their horses. "She only beat me because her horse is  a REALLY nice mover, if I had that horse and she had mine, I'd beat her." But you can't know that. "My horse acted up in the court and hers didn't and that's why I lost." You can't know that. "She shouldn't be at this level, her horse is too trained, she should be at least a third level." You can't know that. 

I've heard it with Rico. Earlier this year I was upset about Rico's lethargy and had someone tell me that I wasn't permitted to feel this way because I was so lucky to have an FEI horse and that they would kill to have an FEI horse so I needed to appreciate even being at this level and to basically shut up about any problem I might be having. Apparently when you reach a certain level (usually higher than the person you're talking to), you're not allowed to have problems, be upset, or do anything less than shit motherfucking rainbows at all times.  

Alright so maybe I'm exaggerating because

This legitimately was fun to sit

Don't get me wrong, I'm TOTALLY guilty of this too. There was a girl in my barn when I was younger who had a PSG schoolmaster and I would ignore all the shit she went through with that jerk and tell everyone that if I had that horse, I'd be doing as well as she was doing too. Lies. 

Just because a horse is a nicer mover or better trained than another, doesn't mean that they're any less of a complete fucking asshole to ride. It doesn't mean that the rider worked less hard than anyone else. It doesn't mean that they should move up a level just because the horse scores better due to better gaits. It doesn't mean that throwing just any rider on that horse would guarantee that riders' success. 

Just like it doesn't mean that if you're not walking around winning every single award  you possibly can, as if you're some kind of weird magnet for ribbons and prizes, that you haven't worked hard. Unfortunately success in the riding world isn't as highly correlated with working hard as you'd hope it would be. There are people who work their assess off every day and due to circumstances beyond their control, won't be able to move up as fast or as high as they really should. It sucks!

So this year I have drilled this into my kids about doing this kind of stuff to other kids since I've been that other kid. I've had the nice horse who is a complete dick and had other kids tell me that I only beat them because my horse was fancier. I've had kids tell me that if they had my horse, they'd be successful too. Yes ignore the fact that my horse (and the nice one my kids were talking about) was an ASS in warm up. That he wouldn't get in front of me, kept stopping and rearing, and by the skin of my teeth I kept his shit together in the show ring to grab a high score. 

Believe it or not, this horse is capable of being
kind of a shit

Anyway, rant over! I'm off to my first day of my last year of school EVER and I'm having trouble walking since EVERYTHING is crossed for Rico to be sound this afternoon. 

Rico's Vacation

I'm in Sacramento (well, nearby) for the weekend while Rico has his vacation. I swear he just got a little ouchy to have a week off and to bankrupt me.

It was rather nice not having to panic to get someone to take care of him or wake up at 5am yesterday morning to ride him. I'm really looking forward to my first horse-less winter in a very very long time!

Winter at the ranch is always so pretty

But we're still in it! And now we're getting down to the wire. So while Rico hangs out at home and while I try to keep my eyes open because coaching at shows is a lot more tiring than riding in them, I'm already making plans for the next two weeks.

My vet said that Rico can go back to work on Monday, which is good because Sunday I will be doing a lot of sleeping before classes start on Monday morning. After my first class of my last year of school EVER (hah I said that a couple years ago), I'll be heading home to ride the newly injected animal.

After a week off, Rico should be ready to go. We need to take it easy on Monday and Tuesday, then have an easier lesson than usual on Wednesday. He'll get Thursday off (or a light trail ride), then Friday will be dressage at home and Saturday will be a lesson. The following week, I will be in my normal school schedule with work in the statistics laboratory taking up my time on Wednesday, so we will for sure have a lesson Tuesday and a day off Wednesday and Saturday before the show.

So really, in terms of real practice rides before our first Grand Prix together... we have five of them. And three lessons. Eight total *real* rides before the test. Yikes!

Said goodbye to the neighbor cows who return home for the winter each year

I was reflecting today at the horse show about Rico and my dressage career in general. I only started riding dressage ten years ago. Ten years ago I was at this very show doing Training and First level with my previous horse, Larkin. Winning the USPC C Class (which one of my kids won today!!)., winning the team classes, winning high score in my team... And learning that dressage was what I wanted to do with horses.

Since then, dressage has basically been my life. It's weird to think that this part of my life (at least, FEI dressage, but I am taking a break from horses) will be over in just a few short months. I'm excited to be done, since it's stressful and expensive, but I can't help but to feel like it's going to be incredibly bittersweet as I watch my kids come up through the levels at show at the shows I did just a few years ago. Watching Rico lose muscle, never to return to the show ring with me aboard, might be the saddest part of all of this. I try not to think about that part.

I'm going to miss him so much

Fingers crossed that Rico is sound on Monday and that in eight short rides, we'll be ready to canter up centerline without his rider leaning off of him to hurl. Definitely felt like doing that before.

Results From the Vet Check

Alright so first things first: I'm basically out a second round of tuition for the semester thanks to this fucking vet check BUT provided that Rico is sound on Monday, we are good to go for the Grand Prix in a couple of weeks!


The details:

I had to do some graduate school stuff today so my mom generously offered to take Rico to the vet and I would meet her there. I gave her permission to do whatever it took. I'm in so much debt right now from school, but it's only money and I'm walking into a field that pays fairly well, so I'm just blindly throwing money at my horse. It's probably a bad decision, but I may never have the chance to compete at these levels again.

So I said do whatever, inject EVERYTHING, I don't care what it costs. That's kind of dangerous.

First they flexed his coffins and his hocks (and the rest of the joints). The right hind hock was positive and the left front coffin was positive. They then took x-rays of his front left foot. The coffin angle isn't great. With that joint, a negative angle is bad, it puts a lot of pressure on the coffin joint. He wasn't negative but he wasn't positive either, so basically his coffin joint is under more pressure than it should be. He comes up lame on hard ground because of it. Heidi's footing is harder than mine, makes sense that he would come up lame at her place but not mine.

So we injected both hocks and both coffins. We're also going to do three rounds of adequan a week apart (one tomorrow, one next Thursday, and one the Thursday before the show) and he'll get legend before each show just to give him a boost.


I'm leaving for state championships with my students on Friday, so Rico will get the time until I get back off. I'll be able to ride him on Monday afternoon and then ride with Heidi on Wednesday provided that he is sound. Then it's two weeks of work until the show. After that, we'll reevaluate the lameness and make an attempt at the show in October. My vet said it would probably last but he wasn't a hundred percent.

Overall my vet was happy, said that other than the lameness Rico looks GREAT, he's all dapple-y (which he could see through the dirt haha) and is well muscled.

I still feel nervous, and am probably going to be extra careful with footing, but the good news is that it isn't a re-injury or a new injury, just wear and tear from being an old horse competing at a high level with shitty feet. That's the best I could have hoped for.


This is my last fucking FEI horse. I love him to death but when I get this vet bill, I think I might pass out.

I Did It Anyway

So Rico is lame right? Well I still signed us up for the Grand Prix in two weeks. The entry isn't expensive (especially in comparison to what tomorrow's vet appointment is going to cost me) and seeing his name next to the Grand Prix even if we have to scratch will be nice. We're so damn close!

Could I just wear this shadbelly
one more time to take the cost per
show down a bit more?

I'm trying to stay positive. There are several things that could be going wrong and I'm completely obsessing over all of them...

- Rico is 19 years old with multiple previous injuries. One of those injuries (in the left that would be his old check injury or his old collateral ligament damage in his foot) could be bugging him. He gets a week off and he's fine.

- Rico got his right coffin joint injected at the beginning of the year but not his left. Maybe he needs that one done now too. It's not uncommon for an older horse to need coffin injections. Especially given how much passage he's been doing which puts pressure on that joint.

- Years ago, Rico had a lesion in his deep digital flexor tendon in his right front leg. It's a repetitive stress injury caused by him having low heels and a lot of toe. Since then we've changed his shoeing and he went sound with surgery to fix that lesion. However, my vet implied that it was only a matter of time before the left one went as well. That could be happening. We were able to keep him comfortable enough up to the surgery with injections in his pastern joint.

- Because his right hind is weak, he could be loading his left front more than usual, especially in the passage. He could just be sore because of that leg, perhaps he needs another round of hock injections.

- It could be something in his neck/back. Chiropractor will be contacted after the vet sees him.

So cute

I'm not sure what to hope for. My vet is a miracle worker and understands that high performance horses are not always going to pass a vet check with flying colors. Maintaining him is fine, he'll be retired after this anyway. Even Heidi said that it was mild enough to get through a test with, he was not uncomfortable, just not quite right. If it was the day of the show, we'd have just pushed through. He was happy to work.

I'm starting to handle it better. Yesterday I was in shock. A night spent away from the horse with boyfriend and non-horse people was exactly what I needed.

Today I tried to stay busy before work and in between cold hosing his stupid leg. I recently murdered a house plant so I went to the store and got a new victim plant. I also did ALL THE LAUNDRY and my dogs were sick of me bothering them to play. After work my best friend took me out to dinner and forced some alcohol down my throat and I'm feeling better now.

Love him

Vet check tomorrow at noon (almost twelve more hours), then we're having a big woo grad school is starting again party so I'll try to update before then with how it went.

Lame

Rico came up lame on his left front leg at our lesson today.

This never gets any easier or any less devastating

Vet check on Wednesday to see if we can inject him to make him feel well enough to do our Grand Prix in two weeks. Or if it's soft tissue... well, we were so close. There's no heat or swelling, so it's hidden somewhere in there. I wish he could tell me what is wrong.

I'll update when I can. I'm not handling this all too well as you'd probably expect.

Trainer Ride

Heidi got on Rico in my lesson on Thursday!

Rico hasn't had a trainer sit on him in five years. The last time a trainer was on him, I was wildly unhappy with how he was ridden and actually pulled him out of full training, never to return to a full training situation. Tracey always mentioned that she wanted to sit on him, but her health wasn't great while she was teaching me, so that never happened.

In these five years, I've had a handful of people ride Rico, only to be severely disappointed with how he went for other people. I'm certainly not the greatest rider ever, but Rico and I mesh pretty well together. He's not a ridiculously hard ride, he's actually quite straightforward, maybe too much so. You HAVE to be able to get him round and you HAVE to be able to get him forward. After that, you're golden. However, he kind of tries to trick you because he really doesn't want to work hard. He'll zoom off with his head in the air, or he'll go super round, get behind you, and stop. So there's this balance you have to find between making sure he's staying round and then covering enough ground where he's connected but not so much that he's running.

I took more night pictures using the bulb setting!
These are star trails at a 15 minute exposure

Heidi had no problems, OBVIOUSLY. She got on, put him right on the bit, activated him, and they were off! He never once tried to get behind her (he knew she meant business! And he's been very good about that recently).

The point of her riding him was to get the ones. She started right off the bat with twos after getting situated at the canter. He was a little confused, but immediately figured out what she meant (I've probably got six inches of height on her so there's a big leg difference there! We had to wrap my stirrups for her).

She tried the ones and he was just confused. She managed by the end to get three good ones in a row and told me that she thought he just didn't quite get it yet. We're going to back off training the ones. He gets this weekend to think, and then we'll really start next week. She says he doesn't understand the biomechanic, he just climbs up above the bit and physically can't do any more. Poor pony.

Light painting on the barn!

Then she played with the piaffe and passage. Again the aid was off but they worked it out quickly. I was happy that he went around and held the passage for so long. He LOOKED like a Grand Prix horse at times, like for reals. But I can see that he gets very uneven behind sometimes and it doesn't feel like he is. This is totally normal, most horses don't have an even passage for a while. It's so much power from behind that whatever hind leg is strongest takes over and one leg stays on the ground too long. Rico's right hind is the obnoxious one, so of course this one stays on the ground way too long. What a jerk.

She touched the trot but decided it was fine. God he trotted so nice with her. I feel like he just kind of ho-hums with me bouncing around. She sat so still and he had SUCH a nice cadence. Ugh, time for more sit ups.

When I got on, we played with the piaffe, passage, and ones. The piaffe was better, but I still think I get better piaffe at home. The passage felt great! The in from the passage to piaffe was fine as usual, and coming back into passage was better but not perfect. She says he looks much smoother in the transition, but that now we need to really attack the unevenness.

Coming from piaffe to passage you really notice it, and it's the reason why the transition is rocky. He pushes way off of his left hind, then lands on the right and stays there too long. So coming out, I'm to tap his right hind.

"In all my years of judging and riding in shows, you'll never ever ever get a comment 'horse too active behind' so tap him!"

I'm going to take that to heart but also remember what Alfredo said about not going for BIG and overfacing Rico with a gait he can't handle physically.

Milky way over the barn again, I'm obsessed

We have another lesson this afternoon and Heidi is going to hop on him again and try more ones. I'm not sure how successful it will be, he's been struggling a little lately and I think he's a bit burned out. Time for a trail ride! 

Rico Called Shotgun

I have a lot of things to talk about this week! My posts will probably disappear for a bit when I start my second year of graduate school in ten days but for now, on with the post.

This week, Rico has been SUPER FORWARD! He's suddenly very interested in staying in the front seat. It's been about six or eight weeks since we started really working on getting him reliably in front of the leg and it's really paying off. I've had some of the best rides I've had this year over the last week and it occurred to me yesterday that I was sitting SO quietly and he was cantering very collected and round without me having to do a thing. I hope this NEVER goes away. 

This week he's also getting a bit of piaffe boot camp. The show was a good example of why we need this- the piaffe is not reliable in the show ring. 

It's one thing that his ones suck, his ones suck at home too. But his piaffe is GOOD at home! So why did we get a 4 and a 5 on them? Rico isn't quiiiiite convinced he has to do it in the show ring. 

How to fix it? Make it even better and 100% reliable at home and desperately hope that it translates to the show ring. 

One really hot day, boyfriend and I went to Moss Landing

The problem in the piaffe is that he just stops. Really what it is, is that he has a really quality piaffe but doesn't like working hard. So he starts off great and then goes "mehhhhh a halt is basically the same," and stops. It's not the same, Rico, a halt is very different than a piaffe.

It frustrates everyone involved that Rico has a SUPER piaffe and yet doesn't want to do it when asked. It especially frustrates me that I've heard from multiple people that it's easily a 7 in the show ring. A 4 is not a 7, Rico. 

Piaffe is also a double coefficient. There are three of them in the GP test. So there's that. 

So pretty

On Tuesday I decided that I wanted to work him in hand. He learned to piaffe in hand and I can kind of wedge him against my arena fence to get him to do it. This helps because then I can see his activity, sitting, and how even/diagonal his steps are. Those things are hard to determine undersaddle without a mirror. 

I started asking and he just stood there, so I swatted him and he charged through me. Ah, there's the problem.

We worked on it a bunch in hand and voila! He's MUCH better in the piaffe undersaddle. 

Beach!

Yesterday I did the same thing. Right away he was on board in hand to do the piaffe when aided and it translated beautifully undersaddle. 

I worked on transitions in and out of it from the passage and he was great into it, but as Heidi noted at our last lesson, he kind of poops out half way through. She has me trot out of it when he does that but I took it to the next level and made him gallop out of it. I basically told him that he can piaffe a couple more steps, or he can gallop around my arena. It was 85 degrees. He opted to piaffe. 

A boat!

Soon we had the BEST transitions in and out of the piaffe and the BEST piaffe we've ever had. The passage benefited too, I had more steps where I wasn't using my spurs than when I was. I really want to school both without spurs so that in the show ring when I put them in him, they mean something.

I really want to get at least 80% of what I got today in the show ring, it would give me so much confidence! 

Such a nice cool day  

I leave for my lesson today in an hour and a bit. Today Heidi gets to ride him to see if she can get more one tempis out of him. Fingers crossed!!

Even More Conditioning

In my last post, I mentioned revamping Rico's conditioning schedule.

I've struggled to keep him as fit as he needs to be, since I don't actually know how fit he needs to be! What I do know is that he wasn't quite fit enough at the last show. Well, he was fit enough to do the I2, but by the end of the test he was itching for a break and with moving up to GP in the next month, I need him much fitter than he is now to get through that test, since it's quite a bit longer.

Milky Way over my barn! Finally got to edit these pictures

Currently, he's been sitting pretty at the following:

3-4x/week- dressage at home
1-2x/week- lesson with Heidi
1x/week- day off
1x/week- light day, trail ride, hack, etc

Dressage at home means:
15-20m walk
5m warm up
1m break
4x8m work sets with 2m breaks in between
10m walk

Toward the neighbor's house

I like what I'm doing each week, it works for my schedule (I desperately need a day a week where I don't see a horse) and I feel like it works him enough but not to the point where he's really tired and we risk injury.

What I do want to change, is what we do in our rides. Eight minute sets are great, but he needs to do more. I'd rather have him be used to more work with fewer breaks so that in the test when he gets a walk break after four minutes, he's like WOOHOO instead of thinking he deserves it and that it's about time.

So we're moving up to TEN minute work sets rather than eight for the next two weeks and after that, he'll move up to TWELVE minute work sets.

I'm also going to make a point to ride when it's hot. We take lessons in the middle of the day and don't get to pick our ride times, but at home I always try to ride early or late when it's cool. Yeah it's easier on both of us, but it makes us ill-prepared for shows and lessons which are then MUCH harder on us. So we're riding as much as possible in the 90 degree heat doing all of this work. Ugh.

Such a pretty place

I'm also getting fitter! This is my sixth month doing crossfit and the other day I took up cycling. Boyfriend now lives near a paved trail, so we (plus his roommate) went out for a ride. We ended up doing about 7 miles! I expected to be sore afterwards since I haven't ridden a bike since March when I did four miles and was sore for five days. I was not sore. I wasn't even tired. The next day I just got up early, went to crossfit, rode two horses, and ate my weight in whatever I could find in the kitchen that had protein in it.

It's really helping my riding, I can out ride Rico easily. Now he needs to get on my level :)

Milky Way!

Intermediare II Photo Dump

I'm almost done editing pictures from the show this weekend!

Afterwards, I love this picture! Rico looks so tired though

I'm actually standing in the barn right now, these pictures took a while to upload so I got Rico ready to ride while I was waiting.

Today we're starting our new conditioning schedule- we were doing 8 minute sets of work and now we're moving up to 10 minute sets. Today I'll just do three, but ideally I want him doing four each day. This show made me realize further that he needs to be even MORE fit! When he's done with this schedule (in four weeks right before the Grand Prix), he'll be up to almost 1 full hour of trotting and cantering not including breaks. Yikes.

On to the pictures!! Once again my computer is questionable with its display so they're probably a lot more vibrant than I wanted them to be, but I make no claims to be a professional photographer. COLORS!

I'm nervous! Rico couldn't care less

Up centerline

He's so much more forward now!

Medium trot! My shadbelly wanted to all be on the right side... ugh

Half pass, look who's sitting straighter??

Extended canter

Coming into the right pirouette, note the
fear in our eyes

After the ones, almost done!

Final passage on centerline

SO happy to be done, SO HAPPY

I'm still feeling really great about this show, but the pressure for the Grand Prix in LESS THAN A MONTH is starting to set in. And it's manifesting itself in different ways.

For example, you should have seen the ridiculously long email I sent to my boyfriend today about camping dates. It was crazy. Boyfriend just responds with "whatever you want" and "you pick," he's a keeper... and is in for it for the next few months as we're comping at the highest level.

Future Grand Prix horse right here!
Who is now pawing because I'm taking too long :)