Letting Go

Monday and Tuesday were interesting days, they sort of contrasted each other a bit. On Monday, we had a great ride in the round pen, then a not as great ride in the dressage court. On Tuesday, we had a not so great ride in the round pen, but a great ride in the dressage court.

He's getting so light :( do not want a white horse!

TC has started this new thing of bucking when he gets hit with the whip. Let me clarify that I say hit but I mean tapped lightly. TC classifies the tapping as being beaten and kicks out at it, then eventually bucks and bucks. He's really not very good at kicking or bucking, he hasn't figured out how to do two in a row, nor has he discovered that putting his head down gives him more leverage. So luckily, while the bolting unnerves me, I don't mind the bucking or kicking. Actually could he just quit bolting and only buck/kick please?

He gave me a bit of that in the round pen on Monday, but after that was quite good. We had some excellent walk trot and trot canter transitions, and his old owner (well, he had like three owners, this one owns his half sister who is also boarded at the barn) came by and told me how amazing we looked. It's not saying much because the last time he saw TC, TC was just barely four.

He was quite good until we were cantering to the left and the horses in the turnouts exploded. TC wanted to stop to look at them- he got rigid in his body and stuck his head up. I was so happy my trainer was there, since I probably would have been a bit slow on the uptake to get him back to work. Nope. Keep working. He needs to really understand that if ANYTHING happens around him, he has to keep working. I'm not all too good at doing that though, but hearing keep pushing on him, bend him, make him go forward, etc helped keep me on task.

TC eventually took a deep breath and came back to me! I love that we got to that point. Even if I get frustrated that we're still playing in the round pen each day, at least I know 100% that it's a place where not only I feel confident just riding around, I feel like I can handle anything he does in there, and therefore I feel like I can improve, rather than just make things worse, when things go wrong.

Kittens are getting turnout each day to get used to being outside!

After that, we wandered out to the dressage court. There were two other riders in there and TC was VERY interested in what they were doing. I'm fairly certain that TC thinks that all horses within 500 yards of him need to check in with him about what they're doing and where they're going and what their life plans were. He was drawn to them like a magnet, making our perfect 20 meter circles lopsided.

Aside from him leaning in their direction, he was totally fine in the arena until they left. Then he went completely rigid on me and I backed off and it was going to be bad. I knew I could get through it, but as my trainer started helping me, I totally pulled out my ammy card (erm, not actually an ammy here but I'm a dressage trainer not a crazy baby horse trainer) and asked him to ride through it.

It's really nice to be able to do that because it gives me a visual of what his acting up looks like and how far he will go. My fear on TC doesn't have anything to do what TC has done in the past, it's more a fear of the unknown. So seeing what he does with BRH trainer and how he gets through it is really good. When we switched, TC did bolt, but only once before he got put to work and then all he did was whinny and get rigid in his shoulder. We talked about how TC gets against his rider sometimes, especially on the right side. When that happens, he gets unrideable and that's when he can really get away.

Setting up jumps while my expert jumping horse grazes on dead
leaves and sticks

The key to fixing that is to keep him soft, and this is where I make a mistake. When he gets rigid, it's like he's not listening to me anymore, and instead of yelling louder (putting him to work with louder aids if necessary), I just give up and freeze. Not good. It was nice to see that BRH trainer could just put him to work and only have one small issue vs what in my head feels like it might be a huge fight if I put him to work in that moment. I think this stems from Rico's propensity to act up worse when I made him work harder, so he taught me to release all pressure and get out of the way. TC needs the opposite. So hard to adjust! And why am I much better at this on client horses?

I hopped back on at the end and trotted a bit. He was fine, still a bit on the muscle and rude, but he stayed with me and I gave that to him.


Tuesday we had a really questionable time in the round pen. Because of the footing (which was weirdly deep, this footing confuses me, sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's deep... most of the time it's great though), we stayed slightly off the rail onto a 15m circle. I figured that would be good for him, but it sort of magnified the bucking issue. We had more bucks, even at the trot. I had it out with him tracking left when he wanted to fly out to the rail, I blocked him from doing that, so then he started bucking. So he got told not to do that and then gave me some decent canter in each direction.

I mostly worked on my position, straightening up a bit, looking up (say it ain't so), and carrying the loop in my reins, which is something Olivia mentioned at her last clinic and I have tried to embrace a bit more. I'm starting to get really frustrated with my position, so being able to work on it for a bit was really nice, gotta do a little bit every day.

Rico was super fun to jump when I remembered
to keep my leg on... weird. 

After the ride, we headed out to meet BRH trainer at the dressage court, which was empty. I was talking to him about Monday saying that I was choosing to believe that the issue the day before was just about the horses, not about the dressage court. And it was, because TC was great out there!

We not only did our figure-8, we did a SERPENTINE. And it was so good! Definitely challenging, especially when the middle loop was to the left since it's hard to put him up to the left rein in such a short period of time. We also did some short diagonals (since bend is our friend) where I let TC lengthen once or twice. Those were good, although lengthenings off the right rein are so much easier than off the left rein. And we did some leg yields. They were quite bad (they were fine, just not 8s). But they were leg yields and were about the steepness of the 1-2 leg yields, which I think is pretty good since I was posting and we haven't really been working on them.

After all that trot work, we cantered! Everything went great to the right until he broke, got stiff in the shoulder, ran sideways as I asked him to canter again, and erm... jumped out of the dressage court. Future dressage star right there. Luckily he didn't care about that (it might have happened a few times in the past...), so he just stopped on the other side and I walked him back in, picked the canter back up, and continued to ride around.

So cute

The left was REAL drunk and once again I was so frustrated looking back at my position and how I was riding. I feel like we're spiraling down a bit, even though it actually has been improving. Trainer did his best to get me to let go of the left rein, but I used the same excuse I used to use with Tracey (who didn't let me make excuses, I could hear her echoing in my mind) and that I'll use here- it feels like I have no control if I don't hold the left rein, it feels like he'll just run off to the right if I don't hold on to the rein. Is that true? NO IT IS NOT. Am I holding onto that excuse like I hold onto my left rein? YES. If I keep pulling on the left rein, will TC keep falling right? YEP. Does the horse pop his shoulder as bad with my trainer on board? Nope. Fuck.

So we'll be working on that. Definitely going to be a major goal for Q4 I think. Other than that though, I was SUPER pleased with him in the dressage court. It's easy to get frustrated about the crookedness and how TC can't handle horses leaving the arena, but hey, at least he's doing it in the dressage court! I love riding in dressage courts.