Sideways

Today Rico and I headed over to Heidi's barn for our third-to-last lesson before our next show! We hadn't seen her in a while, which always makes me a touch nervous. I always think he's doing great and sometimes she quickly proves that wrong.

Luckily she was pleased with how he's been going. The one major complaint was that Rico has managed to convince me to let him be a little lazy. It happens primarily in the canter (most of our work is in canter and piaffe/passage so we don't trot too much), but what he'll do is negotiate with me that if I don't nag at him with my leg, he will keep cantering. The problem is that the canter he's giving me isn't that great... But I'm so pleased that he's being so good, I let it slide. Apparently I need to not do that. Just a couple more weeks, Rico.

We worked on the zig zag first, just the Intermediare I one. During the zig zags, I've been told not to go too sideways since one of his half passes isn't as steep as the other. If I really push for sideways, I go off center and it's hard to make the turn at the end. However, that doesn't mean that I shouldn't practice them steeper than I'll ride in the test. So we did the Intermediare I zig zag a couple of times working on getting him over. He was great! He's always so freaking great these days.

D'aww and he puts up with me

After the zig zag, we attacked the pirouettes. Heidi was happy with my work in the draw reins because he was MUCH better staying round and thus, both pirouettes were much better. The left one she said was a solid 6.5 and even a 7 with some judges. Nice! There's still this moment of do-we-have-to in one of the steps every single time. It's the one after the half way point. Like he realizes that he has to do a FULL pirouette instead of a HALF pirouette and he just stops caring for a second and then goes fine.

The right pirouette is still rocky but for different reasons now. I've been working the pirouette canter on a circle because I like using bend to help him collect. Woops, this has apparently made him a little crooked. Instead of going shoulder-fore before the right pirouette, he throws his ass into the bend and then steps sideways into the pirouette. When asked to do shoulder-fore, he pitches a bit of a fit. So we have homework. But the very good news about this pirouette is that we finally have the turn down! I can control his shoulder really well within the pirouette and it's now the right number of steps. Now all we need is the entrance to the pirouette and we'll have a GOOD right pirouette, incredible.

Instead of this monstrosity... Which was actually one of our
better pirouettes at PSG last year

We finished out our canter work with some one tempis. I've been starting with four now instead of two and it's helping a LOT. I have a theory that he only has so many ones in him in a given day and that we waste them by doing two at a time, then three a few times, then finally getting to four and he poops out. We were able to get four in a row three different times today! Heidi said to start playing with five now. We'll see about that.

The twos were good too. The problem in the changes is that he slides a bit sideways, it's probably what makes the ones so hard because he cant. He kind of jumps across the ring to change rather than staying straight. We worked this into the mirror and I'll be pulling out my poles this week to work them in a shoot. My issue with keeping him straight (which I AM capable of and need to remember that) is that I can't keep him straight without keeping him VERY into the bridle and I can't do that without him stepping up to the bridle. Unfortunately when I take a hold of his face, he backs off, so it's either straight and behind my leg or crooked and forward. I'm curious to see how the shoot of poles helps us.

This is from 4-2 in June 2013 but you can see how wide he gets
behind and how that means sideways. You can also see how his
rider does not help at all by twisting in the tack.

Finally, we ended with the piaffe and passage. Both were excellent today. No stopping in the piaffe and the passage was powerful. We struggled a tad with the turns, Rico knows the pattern now so thinks he can just dart sideways when he knows a turn is coming. I'm going to set up some cones in my ring and turn around them a bit. He'll have no idea what hit him.

We worked a tad on the centerline pattern. You come up centerline at the very end of the test, passage at D, piaffe at X, and passage til G where you halt. That damn piaffe is hard. Especially because I tend to wait until X to ask for it, so I only get a few steps of passage out of it before halting in the judge's lap. We worked on that and I'm planning on looking at the court at the show and deciding where to piaffe.

Rico says no thanks to piaffe on centerline

After the lesson we talked a little about me as a rider, which I almost never think of, being so focused on this goal and having ridden the same horse exclusively (well, client horses don't count) for a couple of years now. Heidi said she'd be curious seeing me on other horses, that I ride Rico incredibly well and have trained him really well- getting to Grand Prix on a horse you've trained yourself is obviously really fucking cool. But he's one type of horse. She's like "you've perfected the art of riding the lazy horse."

That's how I've been feeling lately. Give me a horse that gets behind the leg and off the bit and I'll turn that sucker into a Grand Prix horse apparently... what about a horse that is hot and ducks behind the bit? A few years ago when I was an assistant trainer to an event trainer, I rode a LOT of horses- hot, lazy, sensitive, dull... and yeah there were types of horses I was better at riding than others (usually yeah the lazy ones and the ones that *no one* could get on the bit). That being said, I feel like ten times the rider level-wise now (I had ridden at fourth level when I started there) but Heidi is right, it's on one type of horse. Maybe I'll get the chance to ride some other types this winter so I can calm my seat down a bit.

This one was hot and spicy sometimes and I loved it :) 

This conversation got me thinking about the difference between riders/trainers who are "one hit wonders" so to speak, as in they did well at a very high level but it was only on the one horse vs those who are truly masters of the sport where they do well at a very high level on a multitude of different horses. I think that there is a difference there and that Heidi is right that I should try to ride some other horses to get that ability back. However I'm still young in this sport (28), so I still have time to prove myself on a different horse if I so chose (I do NOT choose though, bring on my desk job and trail horse!). Makes me really think about what to look for in a trainer though. Interesting.


In other news (crossfit news), yesterday I finally hit my bodyweight in my deadlift. This isn't that impressive, most people can easily lift more than their bodyweight in a deadlift (my coach can literally lift 5x my bodyweight). But for ME it's really exciting because my lower back has had several serious injuries and has always been a weak point for me. I'm feeling stronger and stronger these days and have plans of riding regularly without my back brace for the first time in ten years starting after this show. Yay!