Shallow Loops and Lengthenings

This week started off really crazy. Monday and Tuesday were the dressage days of the Western US Championships for USPC and I had students in it. Everyone did really well and it was super fun to see the variety of horses and riders, especially when musical freestyles were required from everyone and everyone was under 25 (I think). So fun!

Except that I was up at the crack of dawn every day. Monday I got home early enough to ride TC, but Tuesday I was at the show into the afternoon and then taught into the evening. So Wednesday I woke up feeling kind of exhausted, but happy to see the baby horse.

My view from just outside the warm up. Note ominous clouds that
dumped a small amount of rain on us.

Once again, he was pretty awesome. I wonder when I'm going to just think this is normal. We headed to the neighbor's and got to work. He started out a bit slow, but quickly got on board with the forward that I've been requiring lately. The really nice thing about this horse is that getting him forward is a catalyst. He's basically unrideable until he GOES, but that's really all you have to do- once as he is forward, he is easy to bend in both directions, once you have bend, he is connected. Cool.

We did a lot of changes of direction, since I knew I wanted to play with the Training 3 loop. I really want him to be able to differentiate between changing the bend and changing directions. I do this by riding straight while changing directions, insisting that he change the bend first, THEN turn. This way I can seamlessly change the bend without him falling onto the new inside shoulder and losing balance. There's nothing like a loss of lateral balance to make that T3 loop look like your horse got into the liquor cabinet.

The one on the left

He was a little sticky into trot, but I don't hold him to any standard in his first transitions, not yet. The connection was excellent, but he did get me nagging (woops). I actually shortened my stirrups a hole because I realized that he was bouncing me out of the tack a little, which was causing my ankles to come up, and when my ankles come up and I balance on my stirrup, I can't use my calf properly. So up my stirrups go until I can control that! I remember having to do that on Rico due to his big trot, mayyybe indicative that TC will have a big fancy trot one day?

Once as that was taken care of, he was nicely forward (and therefore bending and connected, nice!). I opted to canter early, since he's always so much better connected and forward after canter. The canter was great, I primarily worked on keeping him first and foremost round, and then working toward getting him to turn a little better (related to our straightness woes) and getting him better through.

Look at this guy! He's almost horse-like!

In both directions now, I know I can get throughness for at least a few steps every time we circle/go around the ring. I'm still riding on extra large figures because I love what it's doing to his canter. Eventually we'll spiral those in and get him stronger on circles that can actually fit into a dressage court. I haven't talked about the downwards lately, but they're basically amazing. He realized that I would be there for him after the downward transition to help him balance so when he sets back to prepare to trot, he seeks contact automatically and stays connected through. Sometimes the balance is a little off, or he'll set back too much and almost walk, but he's just right there. I used to have to work harder to get him back to me.

Back in trot, he was just great. We first rode some leg yields at the trot (which were excellent! He slows down in them still, but he does not come off the bit anymore) and some lengthenings across the diagonal. I've said how much I don't like doing long diagonals in practice, but he seriously struggles with the idea of lengthening on the diagonal. Once as we did them toward his favorite gate, he understood. They aren't big or fancy yet, but he truly understands that he must take larger steps vs quicker steps. I'm going to let these lengthenings grow slowly over the next year and hopefully he'll have pretty excellent ones before we get to First.

More baby cow pictures because I can't resist his cuteness

Getting a bath

To introduce the loop, I first rode serpentines and made sure he was changing the bend while I kept control over his shoulders and therefore his lateral balance, just like in warm up. Then we rode the loops. Hot damn those loops are easy with him. I feel like I finally know exactly what they're supposed to feel like, since it's been ages since I rode them myself.

But obviously there are places we could improve. He's a little easier to bend right than left, so I had to keep a nice hold on my left rein without letting it get rigid. If I had to choose, I'd say that he was easier tracking right than left. To the right, he naturally wants to bend so all I had to do was assure that he was stepping into my right rein and not falling over the left (which I do automatically) in order to switch the bend. To the left, the beginning was good, and the first switch of bend was good, but maybe twice he fell over his left shoulder rather than changing back to the left bend. I threw in a couple of steps of leg yield at the end on the second attempt at this and that cured him of it.

He is so funny

I'm pretty pleased. I didn't deal with the straightness head on (there are so many other things to do!) but I did have it in mind throughout the ride. I'm hoping we can look at that at the clinic this weekend, but he may not be relaxed enough. I mean if he hasn't gotten the first few rungs of the training scale down, we'll probably deal with those exciting issues. Like tension and retraction and rigidity. All the stuff we've eliminated at home, fun. But I can't expect him to be like he is at home at another facility. He's not Rico, as I keep having to remind myself over and over again.

On Friday, Ali said she may want to do a trail ride, which I think would be great for TC just before the clinic, which is on Sunday. It should mean that he's nice and relaxed!

Give me bread!