On My Seat

Finally the crazy weekend was over and I had most of today off. I was 3 hours northeast on Friday, 1 hour northwest on Saturday, and 1 hour south on Sunday. My 45 minute commute today doesn't seem so bad, and I have to say that I love my Prius.

My student did excellent at the show, got a score for her bronze and all changes were clean. One more score to go!

I got really excellent news at the show as well. I ran into Heidi (my most current trainer, the wonderful trainer who got me my Gold on Rico) and we chatted about TC. She hasn't seen him yet but she sounded interested enough in him. I know that she goes to the area where I'll be keeping TC when/if I buy him and I asked her if she'd be willing to come over to my future barn to teach me on him every now and then. She said yes! Guys, I have a trainer! I probably wouldn't take weekly lessons, at least not now, but I'm really excited to not have to borrow a trailer to go see a trainer if I end up having any behavior problems or if I get stuck.

Behavior problems? Never!

After the show on Saturday, I'm feeling a lot more confident about TC's ability to stay with me in scary places. The horse park is a really scary place, the arena we were in was really scary, and he was actually really good.

I'm also feeling confident with his ability to do Intro B. Not so much that I want to abandon the test, but enough where I think at our next show, which is later this month, we may do Intro B AND Training 1. Because fuck Intro C for several reasons. First, fuck Intro level in general, he goes on the bit and hasn't jumped out of a court in two weeks so obviously we're ready for Training right?

Second, fuck cantering just part of one circle. It may take me a few tries to get a canter in the first place, I do not need for him to think that we trot immediately after that. Yes circles are great for control, but unfortunately TC gives me no more control on a circle than he does off. These are obviously the best reasons to move up so off we go.

I'm glad they dropped the stretch circle out of that test, because if that was still there, we would be doing Intro C.

Fish!

This morning I headed out early, trying to beat the heat, but was unsuccessful. It was 90 degrees by the time I got off of him. TC doesn't do so well in the heat and I'm sure he was still worn out from our adventure at the horse park so we kept our ride short and fun.

I wanted to start introducing more transitions into his life, because I'm continuously reading things that Charlotte Dujardin and Carl Hester have said and the emphasis on transitions has really stuck with me.

Unfortunately transitions between the gaits were NOT going to happen today. He was wiggly and hopping from walk to trot and kind of ran into the canter going left, which is odd because he never does that. So I abandoned that exercise quickly.

He DID want to show me his stretch circle, so we worked on that for a bit. To the right, we almost have a legitimate one. Like a solid 6, or 5.5 with a judge who wouldn't notice that his back legs fly out behind him and that he's more on the forehand than stretching. But what we ARE getting, that we didn't get before, is stretching forward (so no curling) and downward (so not just friesianing along). He'll eventually get those back legs under him!

The left side is hard only because he doesn't bend and instead falls over his left shoulder. I'm working really hard to get my left side back so that he has no excuse and he's so much on my seat these days (more about that later) that I can really influence him laterally by doing that. So now it's my fault if he dumps on the left shoulder, damnit. Once as he was better balanced, he did offer me a bit of a stretch, but it's still quite non-existent.

Someone wants to jump all the things. Nothing in this picture is
below Training so um sorry baby horse

His trot was loosening up really nicely after all the stretch work that I decided, well, if we can't do transitions between the gaits, let's do transitions within!

So we worked on lengthening down the long sides and shortening in the corners and short sides. I don't typically do this exercise, since I like teaching them to lengthen on diagonals or circles, but TC always offers lengthenings down long sides so I went with it.

He's so incredibly in tune to my seat these days.

He now has a really amazing half halt from my seat and thigh alone, and as I mentioned above, I can really influence his lateral balance by shifting my weight. He's going to be so freaking fun to ride later on, I can't wait.

These lengthenings were amazing. Not only does he have a natural ability to stay consistent in his tempo and relaxed in his back while lengthening, he already has incredible transitions due to the influence of my seat. He thought it was so fun to go blasting out of the corner and all I had to do was stifle my posting for a step and he was IMMEDIATELY back under me for the corners. He stayed completely steady into the bridle, even in the transitions where horses usually get a bit tense. Can't wait for that 4-1 test!

*4-1 has a movement that asks for medium trot on the diagonal with 5-8 (or whatever number) of steps across centerline of collected trot. That movement was made for this horse!

But you probably wouldn't be able to see all that much difference just watching because I refuse to push him past that amazing tempo. But as he gets stronger, he's going to be incredible. Knowing that I will, at some point, need to sit that beast of a medium makes me feel kind of nauseous though.

Yes, elastic contact is there!! Just not at shows yet...
These are some nice friggin collected marks, eh?
Damn that submission score, well deserved though, as was
the geometry score for our lopsided circle to the right!

The rest of today was spent inside avoiding the heat and then teaching in the evening. I love the summer and all, but this makes me want to start a new job ASAP because air conditioned offices sound amazing.