The Last Lesson

Rico's shenanigans yesterday didn't appear to do any damage to his fragile legs, so this afternoon, we headed out to Heidi's for our last lesson before the show this weekend. This lesson had the potential to be our last dressage lesson EVER.

Soon hopefully our last (dressage) show (at this level) ever

Our lesson wasn't until four, so I went to crossfit this morning (and have a new PR for squat cleans woohoo) and then drove an hour to a tack store and back to procrastinate doing my homework. I'm looking to replace my jumping saddle once and for all. My current saddle is WAY too small and doesn't fit Rico at all. I'd love to get something to play over fences and go on trail rides in. No luck for me over there, but I got to drive on highway 1, close enough to see the water so that was really nice.

When I got home, I gave Rico a bath, he was super gross and my mom came to take some video today so I didn't want to be riding a dust ball! Unfortunately we didn't cross paths at the barn so I don't have them quite yet. I'll post some when I get a hold of them, maybe tomorrow evening if I decide to ride.

Beach! I wasn't this close...

One of my clients was taking the lesson before me. I love it when my clients ride with people I know/ride with so we can collaborate. This is a particularly sassy young horse, so it was nice to talk to Heidi about a plan for the winter to turn some of that sass into better throughness.

Speaking of sass, Rico was on FIRE today. He took off with me twice and spooked at a guy with a hose during warm up. We started with tempis and I warned Heidi that he might kick.


First, let me say that I can't do threes to save my life anymore. Ugh. So those were shit. We then did the twos and they were great! Only once did I have to zoom him out of them for getting behind me. They were much straighter than normal too. Yay!

Then we did the ones... We started with SEVEN! SEVEN ONES!!!!!!! SEVEN! Seven is the most magically powerful number after all and Rico is pretty magical so there you go. Then I fucked them up a bit, then got seven AGAIN! The plan is to try to get seven twice in a row. But I have a feeling that we may get more... I only stopped at seven the first time because we were closing in on the wall, we could have done more. Oh my god to have anything more than that would be amazing.

I kind of want to keep working on them after this weekend even if we get my score to see if I can get fifteen eventually... but then the other part of me influenced by Rico's laziness says nah.

This is what six ones got him... seven ones got him a blanket
tonight so he wouldn't freeze his pony butt off

We then played with the piaffe and passage with Heidi helping by tapping his hind legs with the whip. She forgot that Rico is an escape artist so as she asked me to turn across, Rico took off sideways away from her. She was like "WRONG HORSE WRONG HORSE COME BACK!" which I thought was hilarious! I really hope there is a video of that...

With her help, the piaffe and passage was brilliant! He can really piaffe on the spot when someone is behind him. Such a talented pony. The passage just feels great all the time, but it was especially uphill and powerful with her help.

Passage from our last test

Then we started the test! Everything was great until the halt, I kind of walked into it. Rico knows the damn test (how did he memorize it so fast? It's taken me so long!) so he stopped early and I just let him ooze over to C before finally stopping. Not okay. The rein back was great, medium trots were perfect, but the piaffe in the first tour was complete shit. But we redid it and it was MUCH better. The next tour was VERY good, a little forward moving in the piaffe but nothing too exciting.

We stopped there to take a break for a bit and then tackled the zig zag. I did the zig zag once and it was perfect. 3-6-6-6-3. Heidi counted for me and then stopped me and asked me if I did it right. Apparently it looked too easy so she thought we skipped a 6. Nope! We're just getting really good at it! Again, Rico knows the fucking test (UGH), so he just DOES that movement. All I have to do is steer and keep him cantering. It will be a nice resting place for my cortisol filled brain.

Rico has extremely low levels of cortisol at all times

Next we did the pirouettes. They were... okay. He was a little hollow because he's trained me to not touch his face during them. He makes up these rules about him getting lazy. Don't make me go round, or I will stop. Don't make me be straight, or I will stop. And I abide by them like they're laws. Since when does he make the rules? I decided to change the rules and he was actually really good about it. We had a really great pattern after that.

Finally, we ended with the final tour up centerline. We had to do it three times, ugh. First, I let him just jog at X in the piaffe so that was a no go. Then we passaged around the first turn instead of having a good transition. THEN it was good. Phew.


Let me just say that riding at this level is exhausting both mentally and physically. It really is terrifying. It's so cool to say that I've done it, but nothing about actually doing it is all that fun in the moment. After I do a good tour or a good pirouette or zig zag, yeah it feels great, but as I'm doing it, I want to just jump the fuck off the horse and run into the bushes to hide.

I find that crossfit is the same way. I bitch and bitch and bitch during workouts about how much I hate -insert skill here- and then at the end I'm like "that sucked, great workout! See you on Thursday!" What the hell is wrong with me?

I think what I really like is the progression. I love that a year ago, we were just figuring out the Prix St George zig zag and the Grand Prix zig zag was so daunting... now it's our easiest movement. I love that my horse has doubled his one tempis in like two weeks, what is that?! I love that two years ago, I was gearing up for 4th level test 1 at this very show, our first show back in three years, and despite forgetting my test and adding in a bunch of stupid changes, we got our highest score at that test. I love that. Tangible progress.

Whatever it is, I'm certainly looking forward to a low key winter full of trail riding, thesising, and crockpotting. I found a chai latte recipe ahhhh.

Can't wait for more of this

edit:  I just had the funniest conversation of my life. I was telling boyfriend about my lesson and about how my cortisol has spiked because of the show coming up. This has lead to a lot of "what if" thoughts and I ran out of the normal ones like what if I don't get my score, what if the pirouettes suck and have started on the weird ones like what if he breaks his leg and what if we get hit by a car on the drive over there. I was going on and on about my what ifs and boyfriend adds what if he turns into a bunch of tootsie rolls to the mix. YES WHAT IF HE TURNS INTO TOOTSIE ROLLS AND I NEVER GET MY GOLD MEDAL?!