Foot Perfect

Thursday morning I taught a lesson before riding TC. He didn't like that I was there and not hanging out with him though. Sorry pony, I have to pay for you. When I went to get him though, I couldn't get his door open. Something had happened (and I do not want to know what) overnight that had shoved the mat under the door. So I went to find BRH Trainer, who helped me get access to my pony.

This tail is insane- equifuse in the background
made it even more insane

After tacking up, we wandered around the ranch with no spooks and then headed to the round pen. TC was great on the longe line. He looked around a bit but absolutely never did anything other than focus on me. Not even a head shake. To the right, he really wanted to canter (side note: this freaked me out at first because this was the one symptom of Rico's lesion in his DDFT- he would avoid putting pressure on the leg by kind of hopping up and trying to canter). Nothing nutty about it, just wanted to do it. I let him take a couple of small steps before bringing him back to trot.

It reminds me of a ride I had with him the day after having a tough time getting a turn on the forehand on him. We worked on it for a long time and I used a lot of praise to get him to understand what I wanted. The next day I came out and he dragged me to the one place in the arena I had been working on it. He proceeded to get all squared up and ready for turns on the forehand. He knew that it was a movement that got praise in the past and he wanted that again. Same thing in canter yesterday.

BRH trainer got on and TC was again looking around a lot, but stayed totally relaxed. TC really struggled to the left to stay straight. He wanted to fall over his right shoulder and almost smooshed trainer into the fence. But they made it through. The canter left remains rough, though has gotten MUCH better since Monday. He offered the right lead, then BRH trainer corrected him and he picked up the left lead right away. He struggles to hold the canter for a whole circle, so for now we're just doing one circle each way.

The right was much easier, TC even started to soften up and go on the bit at the trot. He is a lot more coordinated to the right. I think this comes from his slightly weaker left hind leg. To the right he wants to fall in with his shoulder a bit and so when on a circle, especially a round pen where falling out means that he smashes your leg on the fence, it's a lot easier to pick him up on the right side than push his left hind under and turn his shoulders in. The canter this direction was also quite good, he only broke gait once and even started to come a little round on his own. Good pony!

This cat is so comfortable

I hopped on and put him a bit lower and rounder. I started left and worked on the straightness- turning my hip to change the way he was putting me with his crookedness, putting my inside leg on slightly behind the girth to access the left hind and push it toward the midline, and connecting the outside rein and outside thigh so I had more control over the shoulder. A couple of taps with the whip when he'd bust through the outside aids, and we had a nice straight trot. While I was playing with all of this, BRH trainer suggested I fix his walk trot transitions. They've been a little bit questionable lately. Kate's lesson fresh in my mind where Tracey had her do a lot of the same stuff I need to do with TC, I started working on them.

The big issue currently is that when you go to ask TC for trot, he pops his head up a bit and sometimes wiggles sideways. We worked on this to the left, maintaining the straightness I had developed earlier. He sometimes would use the transition to wiggle out of the straightness, but over time, he figured out that my timing was faster than his. The right was super easy in comparison. I used a little inside leg and thigh to pick up his shoulder a touch, then put my outside leg again slightly behind the girth to activate the left hind leg. This made the trot super fancy and we got some amazing transitions.

I was super pleased because I could actually sit the first few steps of trot out of the transition when he stayed round and kept his back up. TC is still too young and underdeveloped to be sitting the trot on all the time. That is, if I want to maintain his fancy trot, which I do. Because sitting on his back when he can't hold me up will cause him to tire faster, and that will cause him to use other muscles to keep trotting, eventually developing those. I want to keep him building those correct back muscles in posting trot to give me a strong place to sit while at the same time teaching him with a few steps here and there that sitting trot is a thing and it's fine. I was really pleased that I could actually sit it. I've only tried to sit it a few times and found it extremely bouncy, but he's a lot better over his back now!

He was wiggling his nose on my hair

The downward transitions are good, but sometimes too abrupt and he doesn't land in a quality walk. So we worked on elongating the transition and me getting the timing of using my thigh to bring him into walk, but then releasing it at the right time to not block the energy coming through into walk. That was a little tough on me and required a lot of thought.

So much thought, this whole time, that I didn't realize that two horses were playing in the pasture next to us. I laughed about that with trainer, since I didn't even notice that his suggestion at transitions was a sneaky way to get me to ignore everything around me except my horse. Walk trot transitions, they're all consuming.

TC was foot perfect the whole time. The transitions got better and better, he got rounder and softer, and not once did he spook, leap, buck, bolt, or even shake his head at me. The worst thing he did was retract his neck and forget to steer to the left. That's totally fine, he can do that all day long (I'd prefer he did not, but if he'll trade in his bad behavior for that from now on, awesome).

Horse was very curious about phone

We wandered out of the round pen and back to the cross ties, where BRH trainer and I chatted about the next steps. He wants TC to be able to canter four laps each way before we go into the big arena. I think this is a good idea because it will a) allow us to do a fair amount of cantering in the big arena, where he is more likely to spook and b) ensure that TC is fit enough where if we have problems, we can deal with them. I told him on the way back, that I really felt like he was quiet enough to wander around the whole ranch on a loose rein, but that I knew I needed to not push it. Ugh rehab sucks.

TC got a bath that afternoon because he was gross. He really needs to figure out how to not be a disgusting white horse or he'll be for sale even if I do win the lottery and can keep him!