Getting Organized and Then Getting Stupid

Saturday morning I zipped up to the barn to get TC out before my afternoon plans started. I had figured out how I was going to transform this big empty (except for shelves) tack locker into something organized and accidentally got distracted putting it all together. By the time I looked at my clock, I only had 45 minutes left to entertain my horse! Luckily it was one of his scheduled days off, so I decided to turn him out.

Tack locker! Next project: replacing that saddle
rack with one that doesn't cut into my panels
And obviously that's chai in my travel mug!

I don't like turning my horses out, mostly because I'm scared that turnout = injury, as it would if I was turning Rico out. But TC is young and I have a feeling that if he doesn't get a chance to play a little sometimes, he'll play with me. I don't want to play with him. Plus if he launches me, he's likely to leave and be frantic so he'll probably be MORE likely to hurt himself than if I just turned him out.

But there were horses being ridden in the upper arena, so no turnout. Yay! I opted for some ground work instead. It actually went really well! TC longed over the two tarps, and did all the ground work stuff that I know, which is pretty limited. I could get him to back up, turn on the forehand, leg yield, shoulder-in, and change directions on the line. Fun!

Hi mom, why are you so impressed that I'm
standing on this toy?

The cutest

Sunday morning I had a little more time with TC before spending time with my whole family, who were driving through my town and into the central valley to visit my brother and future SIL's wedding venue. I opted to tag along, such a beautiful place, I can't wait for a year and a bit from now!

Given that I hadn't made any poor decisions lately, I decided that it was high time that I put too much trust in my four year old. Bad decision #1- I didn't longe him, I just jumped on... after a day off. Bad decision #2- I decided that this would be a good time to trail ride him (and bad decision #2.5) without riding in the ring first. Bad decision #3- I decided to take the trail that goes through the back pasture, which has tons of horses in it.

It actually wasn't bad until it was really bad, and even then it wasn't as bad as Rico's first trail ride. And now Rico is the best trail horse ever. I found myself chanting that as I led TC back to a safe place to get back on him. He didn't dump me FYI, just put both of us in a situation where I was safer on the ground than on the horse given what he was doing and where.

When things were still going well and I was really
happy with how quiet he was

Oh well, we'll try it again later

I got us back to the arena and did some dressage in there. Now I say dressage, but I'm using it as a loose term for what we did at first. He was super tense, short in the neck, and generally just distracted. That's the norm these days, but it was made worse by bad trail experiences and my frustration with bad trail experiences. I started with the basics, a nice figure-8. But he's so good at figure-8s now that he can do them whilst taking off and whinnying.

So I made the exercise harder. Fine, if you have so much energy that you can so such impressive things as taking off, changing directions, AND whinnying, then you surely can do shoulder-in at the trot.

Yes he fucking can. And he's awesome at it. He gave me the most amazing shoulder-in at the trot! Granted it was still a bit tense and retracted in the neck, but it hardcore existed. Even through that tension, I could feel the engagement and collection that is deep within this horse. He was incredibly steady both in bend and angle. He felt downright laterally supple, again even through the tension. When I get my horse back... I just can't fucking wait.

Wandering around the barn

Totally willing. Someone needs a mane pull but won't let me do
more than a few pulls at a time before stepping on me

Well with that, we may as well tackle all of Second level, right? So off we went in renvers, which was actually not bad, and haunches-in, which was excellent to the right and acceptable to the left. I rode all the trot patterns through Second, even throwing in the 1-3 pattern of a leg yield zig zag and the 10m circles riding across the ring E-B between them (no halt though omg I was not about to stop to let him use his brain for evil).

So on top of the shit sundae that he's been giving me as rides in the last week, there's a tiny bit of delicious progress. It may not be the progress I was expecting to be making (like um relaxation and lengthening of the frame), but the lateral work is the cherry on top of the massive pile of shit that he has been giving me recently. And I fucking love cherries.

At least when I do finally get my sensitive, relaxed horse with most of a brain back, he'll have all the lateral work through Third. Perfect timing for a debut at Training level!

A very scientific graph of our progress. And I have
a statistical model that will predict the level of
crazy at any given day, excellent.