Seven More Days and Six More One Tempis

First let me just say that Rico got his THIRD body clip in SEVEN WEEKS yesterday. He was perfect as usual to be clipped and then pissed when he realized how naked he was. Maybe the other horses make fun of him? I dunno, he's always in such a mood afterwards.

It made for a really good ride yesterday after he was clipped and a really great lesson today (aside from some sass in the beginning). 

For entertainment, some artsy pony pictures

Once again Rico started off a little stiff at Heidi's and we both had a minor WTF moment before he cantered and then worked immediately out of it. That's just him now, I guess. He trots like a pony in hobbles for the first few minutes, then canters and back into the trot we go, this time as a Grand Prix horse. WTF indeed. 

Today started really amazingly well though. I had a little extra time for warm up so we walked a lot. One of the ladies that rides there was sitting and watching (not unusual since people who board there often watch lessons after they ride). She called me over and told me how wonderful I had looked at the Grand Prix test a few weeks ago. She said she was shocked to hear it was our first one and went on and on about how great Rico looked. How he was relaxed and it looked like he really enjoyed his job. I was so pleased to hear that :) what a great start to my lesson!

Rico decided to ruin that by being a twit. Apparently right pirouettes are now easy, while left pirouettes are suddenly extremely difficult and he can't possibly do them. After we worked through that bullshit, Heidi was pleased with both of them in that they both look more rideable. She noted though, that he doesn't really keep cantering very well in them. He kind of bounds up and down and loses a touch of rhythm. 

My task then, was to keep him in as much of a three beat canter as possible (actually rhythm loss is appropriate in the canter pirouette- they lose the moment of suspension and get four-beat-y, but Rico takes it too far). As we all well know, I'm not the most coordinated in pirouettes so I found that I couldn't possibly do all of those things at once and started messing them up. Soon they were just fucking enormous. Like not even canter pirouettes, just small circles. I did eventually get it but boy did it take me a while. 

The best pony nose

We then worked on the two tempis, which were good, except that I need to school nine in a row more often. For a while we weren't, but now Rico doesn't think that nine is a very good number. Five seems much better and after that he was just slipping into threes. Damnit! These are supposed to be good!

The highlight of the day was for sure what happened next: Heidi said "show me some ones" and I just went for it. I put him in the same place he was in the draw reins (slightly low and covering more ground) and just started swapping my legs. We did SIX AGAIN!! Six one tempis! So Heidi said to just quit and next time we do them (probably Monday or in my Tuesday lesson), try seven. 

She said ideally we could do seven and eight and have it look like I just miscounted once. I'm thinking we're more likely to do six then four then five or something. But Heidi said that six to start makes it look like we ACTUALLY know what we're doing and that I'm just kinda dumb about counting, so that's great!

Such a cute pony

We then did the zig zag twice- I need to start it MUCH earlier. Heidi says that this problem is normal- you come out of the corner and want to prepare for it so much that you eat up 15 feet and then have to smash it in. She said come out of the corner and just go into it even if it's shitty. I can always make it up later. 

Finally, we ended with the piaffe and passage. The passage was excellent, and so was the piaffe after Rico learned that he STILL couldn't halt in it. Poor Rico, he's ever the optimist. We had our best tour (trot to passage to piaffe to passage to extended walk to collected walk to passage to piaffe to passage to canter ugh omg) yet and we ended immediately with that. 

We're one week away. In one week from right now, I could have my USDF Gold Medal. Rico could be in his pasture for the first time in years and years. This has been such an incredible journey and we're just so close to the end. It feels so unreal.  

Can't wait

For now though, I need to do some homework, since real life hasn't really let up at all.