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.