All the Eights

Thursday morning I finally got the dressage ride I had been wanting all week on TC (not that jumping and trail riding and riding for 15 minutes due to heat isn't totally exhilarating). I mostly had wanted to work on the transitions needed for our test this weekend (today!) as well as the test itself.

We haven't ridden at the neighbor's in almost a week so he started out like a bit of an idiot, just looking around and screaming for no one. It's getting old that he's been worked at the neighbor's consistently for the last several months and he still acts like he's being ridden to his death every time we get over there. Even when he's relaxed and soft and focused... eeeeeeeee.

Heading back to the barn

But even so, he ended up being pretty good. We started in trot with figure-8s and I noticed that I no longer feel the stark contrast in bend and balance from the left to the right, even at the beginning. He easily steps off the left leg and only sometimes goes through the left rein (mostly while cantering now) when tracking right.

At first he wasn't great in the contact, and part of this is that I feel like I have to talk myself into riding him well instead of sinking to his level when he's not just instantly perfectly on the bit. Rico is (now) the sort of horse who just goes on the bit immediately and stays there the whole ride. Sure a lot of our rides would be improving the throughness, but he was never as stuck or rigid as TC gets.

On my way home last night, a cow was right by the fence!

So when TC doesn't start out quite perfectly, maybe because he's, you know, not as trained as Rico is, I start to match his rigidity. So I'm getting in the habit of walking when he gets like this and working on myself, and then he gets softer and I get softer.

We started some trot to halt transitions and he now just can't fucking halt at all. Like they got worse. You'd think that the more we practice, the better we get, but in an apparent attempt at not losing his limbs while halting, his back legs now keep going when the front legs stop. So the back legs start to pass... the front legs, in a turn on the forehand type movement. And then the front legs stumble forward and he yanks on my hands. It's pleasant. I'm sure we'll get all the 8s.

Cow tongues feel weird. Also props to this cow for not swinging
her neck around to get a fly and impaling me!

The canter was AWESOME though. He was super relaxed and round to the left, and was pretty similar to the right when he wasn't randomly darting sideways. I love that I feel like I can really sit into the canter and influence it with my seat. He doesn't know exactly what is happening to him yet, but he's figuring it out. I can get him to be a bit more uphill just on my seat alone by pulling my butt back in the upswing of the canter and keeping my shoulders from falling back too much in the downswing. And that's freaking cool. I mean the canter isn't quite as bounding and round over his back as I want it to be one day, but he is definitely figuring out how to canter on the bit and stay with me, which is all I need at the moment.

The canter makes the trot so much better, so when we came back to trot, he was much softer and more forward. It was so incredibly manageable. He was so light and soft, so steady, and both shoulders stayed up while both hind legs propelled us evenly. I can't describe the feeling this horse gives me when he's like this. Like this is what dressage IS. And then he spooks at a bird and it's gone, but STILL.

Baby cow!

I immediately started our test and we rode the best Intro B ever. Except the right circle still had tumors and our halts were just as laughable as they were in the beginning of the rides. But the rest of it was soft and steady. He turned very well off my thigh rather than me having to haul him through turns. He bent easily in both directions. He stayed round in transitions. Everything was great.

And today we throw it alllll out the window in the dressage court. Babies are fun!

She is so cute

Stay tuned next week for a recap of the show AND a recap of the Axel Steiner clinic that I audited with Peony and Nicole on Friday. And maybe a post on the medium gaits... or straightness... or half pass... or something else from the many posts I write when procrastinating my thesis. Like this one.