Dressage Dinosaur

In the last week, I've ridden so many bay horses! This one though, you'll recognize, Ramone! Visit L's blog for a video of our attempt to make the poor dinosaur do dressage.

All pictures = screenshots from L's phone videos because we're
classy around here

I've never really ridden a horse who hasn't been ridden dressage. Most of the horses I've ridden in the last 10 years have been either dressage horses or eventers.

Little things stood out to us- like how Ramone's shoulder looked extra huge with my dressage saddle's straight flap vs L's jump saddle. And how Ramone had never had a crank noseband on his poor innocent face (we used his bit though, and the noseband wasn't cranked down). And how he'd never had a short girth on him. Culture shock!

What became really clear to me when I got on, was that Ramone was a little disturbed by my leg being down there. I'm a few inches taller than L and also obviously riding in long stirrups, so Ramone probably hasn't felt spurs on him so low. I touched him with my spur just lightly at the walk to see what he would do and his skin twitched under my leg.

His trot is so dreamy

At the end of a shoulder-in, damn my crookedness

Ramone then proved to both L and I that, like I said in this post, I can't just get on a horse and have the horse immediately do everything perfectly. Ramone gave zero fucks about what I did in the past. All he knew was that I was not warming him up the way he should be warmed up and that I had no idea what I was doing with my long stupid legs.

It took probably ten minutes to get him to a place where we both were at least somewhat in agreement. It was kind of hilarious. I told L she might have to get on and school him for me so that I could ride him lol. I think once as he realized that I was just asking for the same things he already knows, but in a different way (also that I wasn't going to give up), he started to try to figure out what I wanted rather than just writing me off as a complete idiot. I don't blame him!

Lengthening! 

So uphill and fancy!

After that though, it was smooth sailing for a while. To the left, we really figured each other out and had some great moments. He's definitely a physical ride, but he's not unwilling or rude about it, he just has a lot of body to maneuver. He's actually really similar to Rico in the snaffle (but more forward), which means that I'm super excited to get L on Rico this spring/summer and see what she can do with him.

To the right, we really struggled. His tendency is to bounce off the contact when things aren't right, so while to the left I could get him fairly steady, to the right we had some issues in the contact and I couldn't keep him on a circle. I've seen L ride him enough to know that it had to be something I was doing. Since like, this horse knows how to circle.

She said "what is your strong leg again?" and I said "my right" and she was like "mine is my left" and I immediately put my left leg on and everything got better. Without the left leg on to support him, he wanted to step out with the outside hind leg and fall in away from my (stronger) left rein. I had noticed that part of it and had put my right leg on and evened out my rein contact. But my left leg was floppy and he was being directed out that door with my right leg and left hand.

The canter was tricky for me as well because he really is a huge mover. Looking back at the video, he looks so calm and collected (except that I barely got screenshots at the canter because he was a blur!), but being on his back I was surprised at how much ground we were covering. That's what TC does to me too! And I had the same issue as I did on TC with my hip flexors not wanting me to sit the canter but we managed.

Go Ramone! He would like me to go away permanently

After WTC in each direction, I basically just pushed buttons. We started in shoulder-in and the right was definitely easier on me than the left, probably because of my stronger right leg (I think for L it was the opposite). He mostly wanted to fall out with the haunches that way (again due to my leg) so instead of thinking about driving his inside hind leg under, I thought about wrapping his body around my inside leg. Haunches in that way was better, I think because my left leg actually came on and he was happy to move off of it.

The left was a little tougher both in shoulder-in and haunches in. Mostly because of Ramone's complaints about what a demanding bitch I was being. He had already done dressage for sooo long and I wasn't letting up and my legs are like long monster legs. Poor baby dinosaur.

Tell me this horse doesn't belong in the dressage ring! He would
prefer not though... 

I attempted half pass but uh, it didn't go so well. But Ramone can leg yield like a bad ass. We got a little confused again by my crookedness (and I saw the chiro on Wednesday night and I was all fucked up, so that's my fault) but we figured it out and got some good leg yields and one super drunk zig zag because Ramone thought he had finally figured out how to interpret my weird aids and was hell bent on going left!

After that we did a trot lengthening and hot damn can he move. L walked me through her aids for that since he tends to want to break to canter. I rode them a little conservatively so that we could get good rhythm and not risk a break (he was tired by this point).

One of the awesome things about Ramone that goes against a lot of hunter -> dressage stereotypes is that he does counter canter, so I got to play with that. I asked whether I could just pick up the wrong lead or if I should do loops. L said either. I opted against loops because I'm a lazy person and there were people to ride around. So I just picked up the counter canter on a 20m circle and tortured him with my endless counter canter exercise.

At first he was game but then he realized what I was doing to him and we had a couple of breaks to the right (on left lead) and a couple of really smooth lead change to the left (on right lead). Eventually he just sighed and accepted his fate. I think I solidified myself as Worst Human Ever in Ramone's mind after that.

One of the few cantering shots that isn't so blurry lol

We let him be done after that! When I got off he seemed like he didn't hate me soooo much. But he also may have just been really happy that I was on the ground vs on his back.

When I grabbed my saddle off of him, I saw something that irritated me but also always makes me laugh. I put so much pressure on my left seat bone throughout the ride that I had made a divot on my saddle's seat on the left side, while the right side was completely smooth. I called L over and we had a good laugh. But it explained some of the issues I had on him to the right but why I found the lateral work that way easier. Poor Ramone!

The chiro straightened me out on Wednesday (and I have follow up appointments on Monday/Wednesday) so tonight when I ride BFF, hopefully I can sit on my right seatbone without causing sciatica (which is why I tip off of it). Yay SI problems!