Test Riding

Friday morning I had to squeeze my ride in because I had a bunch of stuff happening in the afternoon (including a meeting with my thesis adviser that went super well and I should be defending in a month!). Luckily TC was exhausted from our awesome Thursday ride so we had another great ride. Tired baby horses are good baby horses.

Tired baby horses + dressage courts = fun!

I hopped on him to wander around the ranch and it was the first time he seemed excited to just walk around. I think normally he is so energetic (he was SO lazy on Friday and Saturday, back to normal on Sunday, that Thursday ride really wore him out) that he just wants to go go go and he's sort of unpleasant to walk around. I legitimately walked him around on a loose rein the whole time. Including to the trail course, out to the field, and in the arena by the road. He spooked a couple of times but no bolting, just a startle and then relaxed again. Who is this horse?!?

I can't tell you how much fun that was. What wasn't fun was working in the round pen. He was good, just not in front of my leg. We worked on getting a nice prowling walk and halting from that, reining back, and then getting it back. Reining back is still in its primitive form of shuffling/being pulled backwards, so getting a forward and through walk afterward is rough. After that, we did some walk-trot and trot-halt transitions, which are getting quite good! In the trot to halt, he tends to get slightly crooked, haunches left and shoulders right, which is to be expected.

Ugh the canter. With all the bucking, the canter has gone majorly downhill. I got a few laps each way that were sort of on the bit and then I stopped. Ugh cantering in that damn round pen is so hard. But recently I've been saving the dressage court for lessons, since he can really get away from me out there. But also... the canter was so bad... so we left.

Kate sent me this and it's everything

Walked on a loose rein to the dressage court, where thankfully we were alone- I need to get BRH trainer on that when he rides him. We walked around the outside of the court on a loose rein while I looked up Training test 1 (because I can't get the GP or PSG out of my head, but T1 falls out all the time) and took pictures of his ears. Then I switched directions, picked up a trot, kicked him when he shook his head and whinnied, then rode two back to back T1 tests because why not.

The first test was fairly bad, rusty as I am and green as he is. He was straight on centerline and into the halt, but we shuttered on the line trotting out. The first turn was wobbly, and in the first trot circle, I lost my head and made it shallow on one side. All three training level tests have you canter left first, which sucks for us. It's the weaker side by far (though the right was quite bad too) and starting out on it, well at least we get it over with? Oh well. We made our circle into a square and headed down the long side.

The downward is tough for him on a straight line so he came a touch hollow, which meant that he careened a bit in the corner and made his walk transition slightly rough. All the movements are interconnected, and I worked tirelessly to make Rico rideable in such a way that I could recover from bobbles. We're not there yet! It's mostly just needing to test ride more, I'm fully capable of riding him through these tests, just out of practice and trying to ride the test rather than the horse.

At the walk I had a talk with myself about preparing him better and then we had great work to the right. A soft and round trot transition, a circle shaped trot circle, something that could indeed be described as a circle at the canter, and a good downward and centerline.

Wandering

Instead of walking afterward, I just picked up the trot again and started the test again. It was much better! All circles were rounder, transitions were cleaner, and overall he was more rideable. There was one moment there though...

We were cantering on the left lead down the long side when a bird flew overhead. It's shadow came up behind us and passed on the right side. Remember how TC gets distracted by butterflies and feathers floating around under his nose? So the shadow comes up alongside us and he thought that was just great. He stuck his head on his chest and struck out at it. The eagles have come to take him to safety and he jumped up, hoping to be grabbed by them. Alas, not an eagle but a pigeon. I was laughing so hard that yet again we missed our downward and walk transition.

So maybe our first show will be at YY where the show ring is an indoor. But then there may be feathers floating around... 

What TC expected.

I can't tell you how damn excited I was about Friday's ride. This was huge for a number of reasons. First, I have not felt comfortable walking him on a completely loose rein around the ranch. Second, I rode him in the dressage court without my trainer. Third, I actually got to ride a test. Fourth, I have started disliking the round pen in much the same way I disliked the arena at his breeder's barn despite him being bad (tense/forward) in the neighbor arena. Eventually I preferred the neighbor arena, so I'm looking forward to preferring the dressage court!

He's such a fun horse. I just love him. He's so soft and steady (as long as I am) and we're having some really good days these days. Just trying to enjoy that before life and weather get in the way!