My Disrespectful Pony

Sunday's lesson went really well, but unfortunately due to illness, I couldn't actually work on anything we did until Wednesday.

Enjoy some filler pictures of fall from a few years ago, because
IT IS SUPPOSED TO BE FALL RIGHT NOW WTF 90 DEGREES

A few things came out of Sunday's lesson and my thinking afterward:
1) I've lost my sweet four year old, he is now five. Um maybe a little earlier than we thought, since he doesn't technically turn five until April. But five is when they typically start pushing boundaries. He's feeling more confident, stronger, and more coordinated and he's using it against me to an extent.

2) TC is now living on his own, he no longer has to fight for his food, he no longer gets pushed around on a regular basis. I am literally the only thing in his life that challenges him, and I only do that for a short period of time each day. I think that TC is using this as evidence that he was recently crowned King of the Universe. So he's feeling a little more ornery than usual. #anthropomorphizing

3) I haven't been after him enough on the longe line. He isn't bad on the longe, so I don't usually address any minor behavior. But if he gets away with shaking his head or taking too long to do a downward transition, he will eventually escalate. So TC now gets longed for longer and he's getting a good lesson in not being even the tiniest bit of a jerk on the longe line.

Hey look, fall

4) Undersaddle, I know what to do with him, but I feel overwhelmed when I have to make the decisions. When to get after him and how, when to use what tools, when to give him breaks, and when to end. Just having Katy there, telling me things I already knew, took my mind completely off of everything except listening to what she had to say. Any question of "should I push him sideways when he does that or should I do a transition?" or "do I let him get away with that or should I tell him he's not supposed to do that?" is no longer my question to answer. It was just damn nice. I don't think so well in the afternoons, and being out of regular lessons for now about a year has taken its toll on me a bit.

More things came out of the lesson, but I'm still digesting a lot of it, specifically what to do long term. I am still making decisions about that, but with the idea that I might be switching my schedule so I can ride in the mornings, I might be able to delay any decisions until the rain. I want to get us working well together before I change anything.

Remember when clouds existed?

Wednesday I was delayed a bit by work because it was being super interesting, so I ended up getting to the barn kind of late. I need to get on my own case about getting out there earlier. Today I have all my riding stuff with me and I'm not allowed to go home in between work and the barn. Because home is a black hole of procrastination.

TC was great to tack up, although he really harassed this poor lady who was setting up grain for her own horse. TC was pretty convinced that she was preparing his grain and he let her know by pawing and staring her down that she should probably just feed him right now.

I took him up above to longe. Katy had recommended sticking an outside side rein on him so that he couldn't pop his shoulder, so we looked kind of contraption-y with our chambon AND side reins on. But it worked okay. He was a little shorter in the neck than I had wanted, but I think today I'm going to stop by Katy's barn and grab her sliding side reins, which I think will work better for him. If so, then I guess I'm in for more tack purchases, ugh.

Good thing the Dover store is coming to a town way way way too close to me! FYI sounds like we're doing a potential blogger meetup on the Sunday it opens in mid-November, I'm not 100% sure I'll be there but other bloggers will for sure be there.

And leaves changed colors?

TC was better behaved on the longe line Wednesday than he was on Sunday for our lesson. I only had to get on his case once for not walking when I asked him to. He got a little retracted in the neck sometimes due to the outside side rein, but he did stay much straighter and the canter was MUCH better. I think he's going to get some canter boot camp on the longe line, since I always feel like I'm adding to the tension at the canter. And the canter is the main issue holding us back from showing. There are other things too, but the other things are typical baby things that I can't control- tension, nerves in new places, wiggling.

He was being so good that I hopped on, possibly a little early. I need to start timing my longeing a bit better. I definitely felt more confident on him than I had last week, possibly because I wasn't feeling like my stomach was trying to destroy me from the inside. I tried not to think and just to ride but I failed pretty miserably. Still though, he WAS a little better.

And firewood was necessary for those who actually have a
fireplace? And those people invited me over for s'mores?

Katy's main recommendations undersaddle:
1) Push him sideways- both when he's being bad and just more often in general. I've been using this to an extent. Katy said that horses in pasture push each other around. I should do that in the beginning to get him paying attention to me a bit better. Then, because most of TC's bad behavior involves zipping away, pushing him sideways when I feel it coming will keep him with me a bit better.

2) Ride him low. Katy told me to ask him to stretch, so I laughed at her, but then we talked and she has a point. He won't stretch right now because he isn't relaxed... but if I can get him stretching, he'll be relaxed. So I'm riding him a bit low right now. Which, given his tendency to shorten his neck, makes it look like I'm riding him in rollkur. Ugh. But I gave myself a month long pass at being a good dressage rider, and I'm happy to extend that shit through the winter. I'd rather fix a training problem than a behavior problem.

So we did both of those last night. It went okay. There were still incidents but they were all manageable, we're approaching how he was at the neighbor arena in the beginning, and remember how I loved that arena later? REMEMBER? I need to remember that. We did get some good stretching, and there were moments where he was soft and relaxed. We definitely got more of those moments on Sunday, but it was during the day and he hadn't had two days off of riding.

And leaves got blown away by wind and not just eaten by weird
ponies

Overall I'm just kind of hoping to survive the next few weeks. I wish I had my pony back but the reality is that this is my pony now. He'll eventually be my pony again. Deep down, he's a good horse and this experience will be a good one for him. It just sucks for now. This really tells me that he needs to experience more moves between barns and visits overnight. Better to learn that now than when I shell out a whole lot of money for an overnight show.

I think the next time that Barbi is in town, I'll arrange for TC to go spend the night so that I can ride with her twice. I'm also considering looking into tossing him at two of the barns in the area for a night so I can clinic with arguably the top two trainers in the area (depending on finances and if I like them after auditing). It just so happens that both of those barns are the main show facilities in the area too. Excellent. he is always better at a place when he's been there before.

I'm also thinking that I'll throw him at my parents' barn for Thanksgiving and Christmas, just so I don't have to commute the hour and a half to go ride him every day while I'm there. And boy is he going to go a LOT of places over those holidays when I have access to the rig again.

By the end of winter, that damn pony is going to be used to travelling once and for all.