Day In and Day Out

So TC has been on his "rehab" schedule for almost two months now. It's hard to know if this is actually necessary, since I never had the vet out, but I'm playing it safe.

Most of our rides are kind of dull, which is just how I like it. We go on a 20+ minute hand walk around the ranch (or around in the covered if it's dark and/or raining) and do some ground work. Most of our ground work focuses on two things: relaxation and obedience. And it's been really paying off. I'm feeling more and more confident on the ground with him and he's becoming far less reactive about things. A huge semi followed us in along the long back drive way and he was concerned but stayed relaxed.

He's still lacking a LOT of topline but hey, I'm riding him

After 20-30 minutes of walking and ground work, we start with trotting. So far I've been doing the first trot work in hand just because every now and then (like every few days) he thinks that trotting = explosion/playing. He's just dying to canter and sometimes chooses to interpret my cue to trot as a cue to do whatever he wants to do. But it's not every time and I can catch him really quick on the ground so he's learning that it just simply doesn't work. I can basically get this behavior extinct by removing the reinforcers (getting to play) and directly punishing the behavior- it might return on occasion (spontaneous recovery of an extinct behavior), but I want it to not be his norm. 

He's up to 8-10 minutes of trot right now. I'm not keeping track as well as I could, but honestly I really need like 130% of my brain to ride this horse and listening for beeps is not what I want to do. Plus, the horse canters around in his paddock sometimes but like sure, the extra minute or two of trot sometimes is going to destroy his legs. If his legs get destroyed because of that, then well, he wasn't meant to be a riding horse and he'll still just get shoved out to pasture in April or May. 

So far the riding has been okay. The main issues are relaxation and connection, with an emphasis on forward (but balanced) just because of the previous balking behavior. I don't want to sound like someone with a very large first world problem, but we're struggling with all of these things because of his gaits. Remember how I wasn't sure if the horse was a good mover? And how the stronger he got, the more I believed in it? I guess those things were connected! His gaits are flat, his lower back is tight, and he keeps shortening his neck and dumping on his forehand, which is really unlike him (the on the forehand part, he loves to retract his neck). He also is really convinced that cantering is the answer to all balance problems.

Having him dropped in the shoulder like this is super weird lol
he tries to bring it up but can't hold it just yet

So we're working on that. I'm staying soft in my hip (which is hard for me, esp because my SI has been acting up a bit) to get him to stay relaxed over his lower back. I'm giving him a nice place to go in the bridle so that when he does go to fall on the forehand, I can feel it and half halt. And we're just taking it slow- asking for the big gaits right now would be doing him a disservice and putting his legs at risk. Even if it kills me a little bit to know that they're in there. 

Over the weekend I had really excellent rides. They were actually dressage rides! Today I'll quickly run through Saturday, but Sunday deserves its own post because it was extra amazing.

Saturday I rode him in the (outdoor!! I wanted to ride in the sun) round pen after his hand walk, and he was a lot more relaxed than normal, we do both love that round pen. We worked on straightness on the right rein while tracking left, since he wants to fall out a little bit (still). We worked on my position, including a tiny bit of sitting trot during transitions. We worked on walk trot transitions, since that is a place where his balance/relaxation problems start. And I got some video! It was hard to watch, just because he's such a skinny minny topline-wise and his gaits look terrible. But it was just so fun to even have some video and just ride him focusing on dressage stuff instead of hanging on.

Not yet feeling confident enough to reach OUT to the bridle

It's easy to get caught up in all the stuff I'm not able to do with him, and I'm still really questioning what I want long term, but for now I'm going to take whatever positive ride I can at this point. And if a fun positive ride just involves walk trot transitions and not being afraid of my horse, I'll fucking take it. Two months ago he wasn't letting me ride him at all, so this is major progress and I'm super happy. 

Screw Up with Confidence

One of the ways that I'm going to try to maintain my dressage education and scratch my dressage itch while I'm taking a break is to audit clinics.

One of the ways that I like to come dangerously close to committing a crime is to drive north a couple of hours to visit Peony and Nicole and threaten endlessly to put their dogs in my car and take off.

These two things coincided this weekend with a visit to them and to watch Peony ride with Jeremy on her awesome lease horse, Muze!


Jeremy is an amazing clinician to audit, which isn't something I say lightly since I sometimes find auditing really frustrating. I think there's a difference between people who are good clinicians and people who are good instructors- some trainers you need to ride with a number of times before you really get into a groove with them, and others tend to be better at giving you a boost once and then coming back months later. How many times I've ridden with a great clinician, then tried to employ them as a trainer and been disappointed. And how many times I've seen someone ride with someone I know to be a great trainer and thought that their lesson was kind of terrible.

There are also instructors/clinicians that are super helpful to ride with but not that fun to audit, and vice versa. I've ridden with Jeremy once way back in 2009 and know that at least with where TC is now, I got way more out of auditing than I would have out of riding just because of the nature of the lesson. I want to go back to ride with Jeremy when TC of the future is at a higher level and Megan of the future has more money.

Wish I'd had the money to do more fun stuff with this guy when
he was going like this

That being said, the things he said completely transformed the way I thought about my relationship with TC and I feel like this could possibly be a turning point with us (except the weather decided to dump a big load of CRAZY on us and we're still recovering from that).

Here are some of the things I wrote down:

On Training Changes

Lead changes are tough to train because with a half pass or half steps, you can slow down the gaits/movement to help the horse understand the movement better. With a change, you can't do that because you take away the moment of suspension that is so necessary for the change to happen. Thus by slowing the canter down to help the horse out, you're actually making it harder for them to change.

This is a huge reason why it's also hard to teach people to do changes too! You can learn so many movements in the walk first (like all the lateral work and pirouettes) before you have to manage the quality of the gait. Sure the half pass is better/easier in a big forward through trot or canter, but it's POSSIBLE to do in a stilted walk as you learn where to put the legs.

Lead changes, on the other hand, aren't possible to do/train unless the quality of the canter is there. It's so easy to shut down gaits when training new movements- in fact it's something I've told students to not worry about in the past. But you just simply CAN'T do that with lead changes unless you want shit changes. Really interesting to think about!



Baroque vs Warmbloods

Iberian horses are leg movers, while warmbloods tend to be back movers. This means that Iberian horses use their legs for propulsion and warmbloods use their whole body. And this is why Iberians are usually considered a lot more amateur safe- they keep their legs on the ground when they act up while warmbloods jump into the air. Jeremy said that this stemmed from the purpose of the breed- Iberians were supposed to be quick and stay low to get away from a bull, if a warmblood got scared of the bull and leapt up into the air to get away, the bull would just go stand under the warmblood and wait. While sitting a warmblood's antics is harder, warmbloods tend to have more amateur mentalities- they're slower moving and don't have the busy brain that the Iberians have.

You'd think that a cross would be perfect, right? A warmblood brain in an Iberian horse's body. But you might get stuck with the opposite- a busy brain with a warmblood reaction... like mine. Damnit.

Body mover, busy mind. I gotta think faster with this guy!

Screw Up with Confidence

I went and wrote this on my whiteboard in my tack room.

One of the riders came in on her schoolmaster and told Jeremy that she was afraid of screwing the horse up. And he said "well you will screw him up, we all screw them up, I screw them up, but you know what the difference between you and I is? I'm going to screw up my horse with confidence."

The horse doesn't know you've screwed up when you aid wrong. Let's say you ask Rico to do a canter transition but he does haunches in. If you then go "oh god oh god I did something wrong he's doing haunches in, what should I do?" Rico just learned that he can put his haunches in when you ask for canter to get out of work. If instead, you say "I asked for canter, damnit" and just ride it again, Rico will go straight to work. After all, if you stole him from me, he's your horse so he has to respond to your aids.

Jeremy emphasized that we ARE going to screw our horses up, every one of us, but the important thing is to not let the horse know that you screwed up, just do it again and overthink things later. The reason being is that the horse needs to not lose confidence in the rider, because you can fix training issues later, but if the horse loses confidence in the rider, that's much worse than too little bend in the shoulder-in.

Note here that I think Jeremy was speaking to those riders who become paralyzed with their riding because of self-doubt. I don't think it's in anyone's best interest to start thinking that they can do no wrong and it's always the horse's fault!

I'm going to (and have done it already) screw this horse up, but he
is still convinced that I know everything about dressage!

On Mystical Dressage

Jeremy really emphasized simple. He said not to make dressage into this mystical dance that is very complex. It should be simple. Want to go forward? Kick him. Want to get his head up? Pull it up. Want to slow him down? Pull on the reins. Dressage shouldn't get more complicated as you go up the levels, it should get less complicated. After all, dressage means training, and shouldn't a better trained horse be easier to ride?

I'm a big believer in this too, I love the complex little bits of dressage, but you can never ever lose the forest for the trees.



Every Horse Tries to Get Out of Work

Jeremy said that most horses aren't looking for a fight and aren't problem horses- most of them try to find a quiet way to get out of work because all bodies try to find a way to dissipate its work load. If you put a crack in a dam, the water will rush out, if you compress air, the air will look to dissipate. If you ask a horse to work, they will try to find a way to do it easier, not because they're being bad or don't want to work, but because it's natural.

Horses have different ways of dissipation- some horses go faster, some horses go slower, some horses wiggle. The best solution is to figure out what your horse does and then screw them up with confidence convince them that there's no way to get out of work by doing that.

This guy loved getting out of work

Wiggling

There was a horse in the clinic who would shift their hind legs laterally to get out of having to sit. Jeremy said that whenever the hind legs swing, the horse can't be collected, because in order for the horse's hind end to swing sideways, there needs to be air under there. He said to imagine a forklift- weight on the front end means that the back end swings around for it to turn.

He emphasized to teach the horses at age three that they can't swing their haunches. Then at age four and five (err or um six), they develop engagement faster and easier. Getting a correct haunches-in is easier. Everything is easier.

This makes me feel so happy, because while Rico did have problems swinging his haunches that we battled for years until Tracey fixed us, TC has never, because I always emphasized it with him. This makes a lot of sense, since even though neither horse showed his talent for sitting in his conformation or natural way of going, TC sits a lot better and at a lot lower a level, while I really had to stuff Rico's haunches under him first- it's the training. Definitely going to be even more of a priority for me in the coming years!

Wiggling made getting him to sit so much harder. At least I learned
my lesson with dressage horse number 2!

On Being in Charge

The general horse isn't looking to be the leader. If you put your horse in a herd of ten horses, they will have one leader. If you put your horse in a herd of a hundred horses, there will still be one leader. Most horses are looking to follow, rather than be in charge. And the ones in charge tend to be the most insecure, because they don't trust anyone to lead them so they think they need to do it. The moment they take over is the moment they start feeling insecure, so the rider needs to take over and give the horse confidence.

The more you put a horse to work, the more they trust you to be the leader. Be bossy, but let go a lot. Jeremy said to be like an office manager- go out and tell everyone what to do, but then go back into your office and play solitaire on your computer. When you get bored doing that, go check on everyone's work. No one likes to be micromanaged.


Horses that Lean

Jeremy made me laugh with this, because I heard this so much with Rico and have totally said it to students too.

"If you don't give him something to pull on, he won't pull. But I say fuck you, if you don't give him something to pull on, he won't be on the bit"

So true. With Rico, the leaning went away when we improved his self carriage, and more importantly, when I improved mine. I think that more riders than we think are reliant on their horse's heaviness/leaning for their own balance and that more riders need to work on their own self carriage before insisting the horse carry themselves. Test: ride along and randomly drop the reins, if you even slightly change the way you're sitting, you're using the horse's mouth for balance and the horse will never be in self carriage because you'll prevent it. And that's where I think the phrase comes from (though by the way it's phrased, it causes a lot of people to let go permanently and then Jeremy is right- the horse will never be on the bit).

Finally learned self carriage. Me, and subsequently him.

I drove home after the clinic just bubbling with this information (and more that I didn't write down). The main things I took away with regard to TC is that when he goes to take over (usually in the form of bolting), he's feeling insecure with us. This makes complete sense. He's been bolting MUCH less once as I started being more firm with him about his other habits. It still happens occasionally, but usually after I haven't been as firm with him (like one night when I was talking on the phone to bf while walking him, then went to get on and he dragged me in hand across the arena).

I've really struggled with TC's personality type, and haven't even known what it is- in the pasture he's so submissive, but he can be so dominant with me. I'm learning that it's because I just wasn't being as firm with him as he needed, and what Jeremy said completely supported what I've been working on with him recently and WHY it's getting better.

Eagerly I hopped on TC after the clinic, but it wasn't a great ride. This weather sometimes just kills any progress we try to make because when it's cold and windy, he really struggles a lot more with his busy baroque mind (another ah-ha moment from the clinic- no wonder he's been difficult for me, busy mind + explosive body, Rico only had the latter, he was easy to distract mentally because his brain worked relatively slow).

Didn't know what I was getting into with you, baby horse. Man
he was so scrawny at 4!

But we're heading down this path even through these literal and figurative storms, and honestly I'm still feeling like any path where I get to ride him, however occasionally, is better than the previous path where I wasn't able to ride him at all. Just keep plugging along and hope a dressage horse comes out of it.

Winter Doldrums

I hate to be another California blogger complaining incessantly about the weather but OH MY GOD THE WEATHER HAS BEEN TERRIBLE THIS WINTER.

Okay okay okay I get it, we needed the rain 

I live in the south county, which is just inland from the coast over some mountains. I work on the other side of those mountains near the coast. And that has been terrible. There are three highways that lead over these mountains. One of them has a huge slide that has completely taken out one side of the highway, leading to both sides needing to go down to one lane and get around it. One of them is constantly battling mudslides and has had to go down to one lane that both ways share- they even brought in a light. The last one has been okay, but has a construction project that has been going on for a while, and has also had major flooding.

If I have to go over the first highway, I've been either sitting in traffic or trying to take back roads, but now those back roads are eroding. It's horrifying. To avoid the other two, I have to drive a very long while out of the way just to take this one back road that has some minor flooding, but has held it together for the most part.

Mudslide

Both my parents' place (where Rico is) and TC's barn have been okay. TC's future pasture is completely under water, so he's staying put for another couple of months I think. Rico, Riot, and Stretch are confined to their blue rock paddocks, which hold up beautifully in any weather. The only issue with them is that Rico loves to stand in the rain. Any rain. Anytime I see it I yell at him to get inside! He's sick, the idiot.

Other than some fallen trees and minor flooding on the way to the barn, TC's barn has been okay. His paddock is permanently muddy, but before the winter hit, the guys matted half of it, so he does have a little area to move around in. The arenas have stayed surprisingly okay- two of them have been closed all winter, but one has been open if it stays clear for more than 4 days (which it rarely does, it's been open like twice for a day or two this winter). Granted, it's the one I never ride in so I kind of don't care. But I have done some ground work in there.

The covered has been fine! It gets wet at one end but it's totally usable. Go barn! I'm sure there are barns where they may have a covered ring, but it's completely flooded and I'm so grateful that mine isn't one of them.

Last year during the winter... now this road leading to the ranch
has a major river running down it.

I've mostly felt the weather in the horse. TC is the best when ridden in 75 degree sunny weather. This has been rough with him. On the days it doesn't rain or get windy (which do happen on occasion, though are quite rare), I am able to ride him and usually have good rides. But the last few days have been negative days (on my calendar I categorize them as negative or positive to keep track of whether my attitude toward him is accurate) where he's just been out of his mind with energy and taking it out on me.

He's really not allowed to do that, and he knows it, so the moments where he goes to act up are getting less severe. I don't expect him to magically transform into this dead broke bombproof horse, that takes time and if I wanted that, I should have tripled my budget and bought something less talented and older. But I do appreciate that things are changing, however slowly, with him.

Obviously last winter I didn't HAVE my horse to ride and now
that I do, of course the weather is bad :/

He's gone to bolt a couple of times undersaddle, only to be stopped rather easily by me within one or two steps. It's like he's like "I don't think this will work but I'll try it." He's been a bit more successful on the ground, but tends to bolt sideways away from me. I always turn it into backing him up until he chews (and sometimes keep going- we've done a lot of full laps around the arena backing up), so by running sideways, he actually makes more work for himself.

Slowly it's getting better, but it's of course not linear- the weather really hinders that. But I've been pretty good about not pressuring myself to ride him and trying to use every day as a learning opportunity. All we have to do is get through this awful rain, let the pasture dry a bit, and then he'll be happy in his new home. The horse just needs some room to get all this energy out on his own. I don't even think he'll be galloping around that much, I think it's just having the room that will help him settle mentally.

Fingers crossed my commute isn't HORRIBLE today, I'm back to work after the long weekend.

Baseline Gaits

I don't teach lessons anymore. Well, not regularly (because I taught one a couple days ago). It happened this last fall when my last kid went off to college and I took a job in a place where teaching at my normal places wasn't as accessible so I let the few students I had left go. My thought was to try to build a business in the area where I ride, but honestly, the last thing I want to do is lock myself into teaching every weekend and feel guilty when I have/want to go away for the weekend or ride my own horse or what not.

One of the unfortunate side effects of not teaching very often is that I don't have fun things to post about as much! Often times, things will come up in my lessons that will fuel a blog post or two.

But I taught a lesson a week or two ago that gave me some good fuel, and it's something I've kept in mind with TC's (exceptionally sporadic) training and have mentioned in other posts as well: baseline gaits.

Rider influence < .001

Baseline gaits is a term I use to describe the horse's way of going with minimal rider involvement. Just sitting still and getting out of the horse's way, what happens? How does the horse go? Does the horse stay in front of the leg? Straight? Collected? Connected? Rhythmic?

It's so easy to hold a horse together, and even if it's with minimal rider involvement, true self carriage is impossible if the rider is helping the horse out in any way except stepping aside and letting the horse carry itself. The horse can't carry themselves if the rider is carrying the horse- even if the rider is just nudging the horse a bit or holding the horse back/up/left/right. A horse doesn't have to be heavy or lazy to not have good baseline gaits.

One of the first things I do when I get on a new horse is get out of the horse's way and see what their tendencies are. Do I need to wiggle my fingers here and there to keep the horse on the bit? Do I need to nudge every fifth step to keep the horse in front of my leg? Do I have to regulate my posting to keep the horse in the right tempo?

Because even though none of those things are all that bad, all of them are a) getting in the way of self carriage and b) completely obnoxious to have to maintain when training/riding higher level movements.

His pirouettes were so hard for so long not because he wasn't
capable of them, but because he thought staying in front of my leg
was optional... 

Think of it like juggling. Well, imagine you're pretty good at juggling first because I'm actually the worst juggler and so the image breaks down rather quickly with me. I'm going to throw you a ball every time you have to do something with the horse.

Imagine you're coming down the long side and are going to do shoulder-in. I'm going to toss you the shoulder-in ball. One ball is pretty easy to juggle, even I can do that. But wait, your horse has a tendency to get behind the leg. Here, have the energy ball. Two balls aren't so bad. Oh, your horse also has a straightness issue where they want to fall to the rail with their shoulders? Have the straightness ball. Three balls, that's like normal juggling.

Oh shit, your horse also likes to sneak off the bit in movements sometimes too? Here comes the connection ball. Horse wants to fall a bit on the forehand? Watch out for the collection ball. Five balls aren't so bad to handle, right? I mean you're good at juggling, hell, you're kind of used to juggling all that. Well now half pass is coming next directly out of your shoulder-in like the old 3-2 test, quick, throw me your shoulder-in ball while keeping the other four balls in the air and then I'll throw you the half pass ball. Then the walk transition ball. Then the walk pirouette ball. And another!

Now imagine that you've got a horse who you've worked hard to get and keep in front of the leg indefinitely. A horse who needs a reminder not every other step to stay off their forehand, but every several movements. A horse who has enough strength to stay straight without constantly trying to wobble back to the rail during movements. How many balls would you have to juggle? It wouldn't even be juggling! Just holding onto the shoulder-in ball and playing catch as I trade you the half pass ball.

Not doing much up there

And this is why the baseline gaits are so so important. The reason why TC is a thousand million times easier to ride than Rico.

Because Rico was that horse. Sneaking off the bit in the harder movements because I didn't insist on roundness and self carriage during EVERY single ride EVERY single moment. Tipping onto the forehand because I wanted him more collected than he had the strength to hold so I volunteered to hold him there. Wobbling to the rail because I cared more about moving up the levels than establishing the straightness necessary to perform the movements easily.

I learned my lesson... Eventually. With Rico, improving the baseline gaits were the key to getting him up the levels. I wrote so so so many times about how much easier things were when he was forward, when he was reliably on the aids, when I didn't have to nag at him for collection, connection, straightness, energy... everything.

And yet for so long, I kind of held it together on him. If he was behind my leg, I'd keep him shoved forward into the bridle with a nagging spur while trying to ride movements. If he was off the bit, I'd hold it together with my hand and maybe a touch too much bend while trying to get through movements. If he was crooked, I'd hold him straight. It was exhausting and frustrating and not at all giving me that pretty feeling of dancing with a horse like you see on TV.

Tempi changes are easy when horse is forward and straight all
the time!

It's hard to fix, not because it's hard for the horses, but because it's hard to get out of the habit as the rider. Hell, it's hard to even know when you're doing it.

The major way that I teach it is to drop all aids (aside from the reins, obviously, but the hand does not move at ALL) and see what the horse does. A horse in self carriage will maintain, ideally, indefinitely. Even in connection. Since in self carriage, a horse maintains connection as you wait patiently on the phone when the person on the line says "hold on a sec." The horse should stay round and connected and collected and in whatever gait you were in until you say otherwise. Even if you never say otherwise and you stay on that circle forever and ever.

With Rico, establishing good baseline gaits took a ton of work. First, I had to be willing to let him fail. I had to let him come off the bit, let him get behind my leg, let him dump on his forehand. That was hard enough, nagging comes from the desire to prevent a mistake. You nag a horse forward to prevent the break. You nag a horse in the connection to prevent them from coming off the bit. And the nagging means that the horse never really gets rewarded. So why go forward if the aid isn't going to come off? The horse becomes habituated to the nagging and then it means nothing. Static on the line.

So let them make a mistake. Then make making the mistake a bit miserable. If you slow down, you get smacked. If you come off the bit, you get to go on a small circle. But then when the horse is maintaining on their own, the rider gets out of the way and the horse is rewarded.

Basically like riding a summer vacation, if summer vacation
occasionally ran away with you and kept breaking itself

TC is as good as I can get a horse to be with these baseline gaits, and I'm so proud of that (since let's be honest, this whole thing could be classified as a disaster with us, I gotta take the proud moments when I can). Even in his rehab when he's out of shape and has a pitiful topline. I get on, put my leg on and he's in front of it until I tell him not to be. I establish connection without wobbling my hands or overbending him or kicking him into the bridle and he's just there. All the time. No matter what I ask him to do.

Sometimes he gets slightly low in the poll because I always fucking don't believe in my own training and go to manually put him on the bit (ugh) so I put my hands forward and he seeks contact out there. I don't have to hold him straight, I just ride straight myself and he stays right there. And collection, man this horse can sit. He just does. I have to actively ride him out of collection right now because if I think about it too much, he trips or pushes himself too much and then is sore the next day.

Adjustments are made once and then left alone and he just stays there. It's amazing. One of the reasons why he continuously wins me over when I have good rides on him. It's just... easy.

Medium trot is easier to sit when you're not holding the horse on
the bit, ask me how I know

I'm expecting the argument of "oh my horse is super special and needs me to be present all the time or they get [insert super special verb here]" to come out of this post. And so let me clarify- I'm not saying to go dead on the line. There's a difference between removing all aids while maintaining rider presence and just riding like a floppy dead fish.

Getting out of a horse's way still means maintaining a soft connection- it just means with perfectly steady hands and not wiggling fingers or wrists or stiffness in the elbow. Getting out of their way still means maintaining a leg on the horse- it just means a soft leg that breathes with the horse, not a driving leg or a squeezing leg or a stiff leg. It means a following seat- not a driving seat, but not a seat that freezes and works against the horse. Quiet presence is silence on the line, not a dial tone as you hang up.


Anyway, more philosophies I keep in mind as I train my horse, five minutes of trot at a time.

Spring Plans

A few things are in the works for spring and early summer and I figured I'd give you a tentative schedule.

March 26th- Bombproofing Clinic

I got super stoked about this clinic last year when I went to audit it. I emailed the organizers and they are putting one on near my barn!

I desperately wanted to sign Rico and I up for it and just go play with him because that would be the most fun, but he won't be ready to go off the property just yet and although he's doing MUCH better these days, I absolutely don't want to rush him.

The other two horses I'm considering taking are TC (obviously) or Riot. Riot would be a lot more fun for me, since I could ride him in it, but TC could use it a lot more. Now that he's doing better with his ground work, I'm considering taking him and just working with him on the ground through the obstacles and letting him get to a new place. So we'll see what ends up happening. Either way, I'm excited to participate in the clinic, even if I end up kind of hating it because of whatever crazy animal I take with me. Ugh. Next time, Rico, we'll go show all those "bombproof" horses what bombproof really means (or maybe he'll surprise me and be afraid of everything).

I think he'll be okay. Man was he DARK a couple years ago!

April 1st- Trail Trials Clinic

I'm really curious about doing a Trail Trials this year and this clinic seemed like a really good idea to see whether I'd like to do one! Rico again probably won't be ready for this (since it's a week after the above), and TC isn't reliable enough in new places, so Riot it is! I'm really excited to learn more about trail trials and how the obstacles go. I'm not the worst at opening gates and all that, but there are a lot of things you get judged on (like some obstacles you need to check your girth before and certain ways you need to do things) that I feel like I'm going to forget.

Riot the expert trail horse?

June 2nd and 3rd- Trail Trials

If the clinic in April is fun, I'll be focusing on getting Rico (or Riot, if Rico isn't healthy enough- Riot is just a spooky little thing and horses are judged on how calm they are) fit enough to do this. Luckily I think Rico can do all the obstacles without practice, and Riot will have gotten practice at the clinic so I'll at least have low expectations.

It's overnight, and so it could be my first time horse camping. They haven't released the info about the facility, so there's a chance that we'll have to high line or bring our own corrals. Rico is a saintly creature, so without having ever camped with him, I know he'll be fine. I can either use step-in posts and a couple lines of cable or he'll probably high line just fine. Riot... may have to stay at my friend's barn nearby, or we might be getting up real early to get there.

Man I wish I could take him to the other two clinics!
Fingers crossed that he's good to go in June.

Notice how none of these activities are dressage! I'm not saying I won't be doing a dressage clinic this year, because I do still really want to ride with Tanya when she comes back (but would only want to ride with her on TC if he's a) sound, b) sane, and c) at least starting to school Second) and I can't seem to stop myself from wanting to learn more dressage, even if I don't really want to compete this year. But for now, all of my plans are centered around trying new things and having fun with horses!

Now if it would only stop raining... I miss summer!

Difficulty Multitasking

This weekend it was *actually* sunny for the first time in a long time. I've lived in the bay area my whole life and have never experienced this sort of crazy rain. There are three highways that can take me over the mountains to get to work, and all three have been shut down regularly. Meaning I have to drive completely out of my way to get around the mountain range, then drive all the way back up to where I would have gotten off before driving further to work. All on back roads. It's been insane.

So the few days that we get glorious sun here and there are really great. It's almost weird at this point to get a break in the rain. And obviously I was sick. On weekends where it pours rain all weekend? Totally not sick. On the one weekend where it isn't raining? Of course I'm sick.

But there's a fine line between too sick to work and too sick to

jump ponies

Last time there was a break in the rain, I went to ride Ginger with Kate (almost a month ago!), and since then I haven't really ridden. I've been on Rico maybe three times at the walk, and ridden TC a handful of times doing 3-5 minutes of trot each. Other than that, no riding.

I wasn't about to let being sick and seriously out of shape keep me from jumping again, so come Sunday I headed up to her barn.

I got there and her students ran to get me Ginger again. I'm seriously loving this pony and definitely need a 15.2h version of her after TC and I figure out what we're doing. We warmed up a bit, giving my lungs a break whenever I struggled to breathe (which was a lot). Kate asked to see my half seat and I was able to hold it for like... not very long. Maybe eight strides, but that'd be being generous I think. It's such a foreign feeling, and I mean even just being ON horses at this point for longer than a few minutes is, so half seat is extra foreign. Especially with really short appropriately long stirrups.

My leg was NOT going to stay where it needed to be, and I got into my old habit of nagging with my heel every stride. Something I do NOT do if my butt is in the saddle. I think it makes me feel more stable when I'm up in half seat though. So I worked on keeping my leg down, which then made me feel like I was going to fall backwards, causing me to float forward over my hand because, you know, I fall off the back all the time. Gah.

No more pony pictures because my phone ran out of battery,

boo. But here's Rico

We did a two stride, me only realizing it was two strides after a few times through, it's so funny how what used to be really natural behavior (counting strides between jumps) is now taking extra brainpower that apparently I can't let go, lest I run at the jump, let the pony drift, or lean forward/sideways/all over.

But even with more bad habits coming up, we did work on *different* things from last time, and I only got told I was jumping ahead a few times (that first picture is a good example of it, too bad my phone ran out of battery! I think it got better... maybe not).

And you know what, this time the fun outweighed the frustration. It didn't feel so odd to be cantering down to the jumps, I didn't have this weird deer-in-the-headlights feeling about jumping. And when Kate put the jumps up, my eyes didn't bug out of my head quite so much. I mean they still did. But not as much as they did last time. 

We ended with a little course, riding the line and then turning in the air over the last fence to a diagonal fence, then going back to the line the other direction. At first it was *really* hard to turn and jump at the same time.

I told Kate that I can't do more than one thing on a horse at a time. Okay so I can do the pirouette pattern from the Grand Prix test pretty well, enough for some solid 7s at my last test- pirouette on centerline thinking about sitting tall, weighting the outside hind leg, controlling the shoulder/steps/speed/roundness/vomit coming up my esophagus, ride out straight on centerline to a straight clean big expressive change without tipping or kicking or swinging sideways and immediately set up for the second pirouette in much the same way as the first before spicing up the canter around the corner to prep for the next movement... but please don't make me turn AND jump at the same time.

I gave him the worst haircut the other day and I really need

to go redo it lol

So the first try ended with me landing and then having to do a simple change for the turn, as the pony likes to push off more with her right hind than her left, causing her to want to jump right-left and land on the left lead. The next time around I managed to get the lead over the second fence in the line, but then the pony ran out at the diagonal fence because I once again left a door open, woops.

Finally the last time, I got leads over both fences AND we jumped all the fences. Buuuuut I totally did this move I used to do on Stretch when I was showing him many years ago and leaned hard sideways to get the leads. I laughed because I feel like I'm taking Kate on a rapid journey through my jumping career. I used to duck quite a lot, now that I'm not doing that anymore, I'm revisiting my jumping ahead and leaning that plagued my teenage years.

I wonder what's coming up next! Nothing for a while, as we're entering yet another crazy rainstorm that will likely leave me off the cutest pony ever for a while.

After the lesson we went to see if Junior was feeling better from his thrush (seriously SO MUCH RAIN these days) so that I could pay Kate back for her lessons by helping her with some Second level stuff with him. Alas he avoided the work, so I gave Kate my three favorite counter canter exercises and promised to help her next time!

In the Right Direction

TC continues to improve day after day. We're still mostly doing ground work- hand walking around the ranch (weather permitting), then doing some trotting in hand, then a bit of ground work in the arena, and then I hop on for the remainder of his trot work before we hand walk around again. I'm taking a leaf out of the many natural horsemanship books that I haven't read and doing minimal riding until the ground work improves. The nice thing about ground work is that he can't intimidate me there, and I don't ever lose confidence on the ground- I can also stop him mid bolt while undersaddle he can get away from me a lot faster.

Such a good little horse

Trotting in hand has been really good too. In the past, any time I'd trot him in hand, he'd try to play with me. Now he just trots quietly next to me. I think he's realizing that unless he wants to sit down and play backgammon with me, I'm not interested in playing games with him. I'm so boring.

While wandering around the ranch, he's handling himself a lot better when shit hits the fan. The other day a horse was in turnout and exploded behind us. In the past, this would have meant that I was dragged down the road away from that horse and then TC would have been insane the rest of the day. This time he just splayed all legs out, snorted, and then threatened to passage away. Much better response!

AND I've actually had two days now where I have taken him back behind the riding school with no problems. In the past he's really been freaked out back there, and he still is, but he's again handling himself a lot better when he gets scared. I've let him eat a bit back there, which I think is helping him get over his fear. Grass > whatever he thinks is back there, apparently.

On the ground, he's so much better- he stands quietly in the cross ties, moves out of my way politely, picks up all his feet without kicking me, and hasn't bit the chains in a while. When I go to put stuff away or grab stuff from my tack room, he snoozes in the cross ties rather than stepping to the front of them and pawing. I can tack him up without him trying to yank the saddle or surcingle off of himself by the billets, and I can't remember the last time he went to bite me.

Yummy grass

Undersaddle remains the most questionable, but that's because most of the work we do is on the ground right now. But it is translating a bit.

Last week I rode him a few times and I was going to dissect the rides a bit more.

At the beginning of all of the rides, we've had to have a talk about him going forward (edit- except yesterday!). His first instinct is still to balk and threaten to rear. I've taken to grabbing one rein, bringing his nose around, and smacking him, then releasing when he goes forward. This works two ways, one: if you threaten to rear, you will have to do this unpleasant thing and when you stop doing it, you get to go forward; two: if he DOES rear, which I don't think he will, at least not so high to be dangerous, I already have him turning his neck to throw him off balance.

But the head turn and smack has been helpful. The other helpful thing has been to work on mounting. TC tunes me out when I go to mount him. I've been doing a lot of setting him up to be mounted and then making him back up or do a turn on the forehand. The other thing I've been doing is making him give to the outside rein when I go to mount him. I take his neck to the side and when he softens, he gets the rein back. This lets me get his neck down so that I'm not getting onto a short necked, rigid backed crazy animal. At least having his neck down gives me a better starting place.

Once as we're moving, he's a fucking dreamboat, as usual. There have definitely been threats, and I'm being certain to get on his case when he even thinks about doing anything but being perfect. I'm taking a note out of my old jumping trainer's boat with Rico- if I wait until he's doing something TERRIBLE to discipline him, then he'll keep doing that thing. If I discipline him when he intends to do something terrible, I can stop him from actually doing the thing.

For example, on Tuesday night of last week, I rode him. There were bats screeching in the dark and he hated that. He went to bolt but didn't, just sort of got short in the neck and scooted, I immediately laid into him like he did bolt, and when he slowed down I released everything and invited him to go forward again, which he did willingly. If he thinks I'll get on his case that much for even THINKING about bolting, he doesn't want to know what I'd do if he actually bolts. I dunno, I might be creating a monster but for now it's working.

Nice to see the sun too!

The dressage itself has been magical though. Like not a toe out of line. He's super out of shape strength-wise (I mean we're only doing like 5 minutes of trot total so he's definitely out of shape cardio-wise but we're not noticing that as much), but he's trying so hard.

I love the feeling this horse gives me, as I've gone on and on before. And it's much better now than it was. Previously we had problems with steering, but I've been doing a ton of work on moving his shoulders in hand because he likes to bully me with them. That work has translated undersaddle and I've got him laterally now. We're also doing a TON of backing up a la Walter's trainer, so he's stronger behind and is bending his hocks for realzies.

He's so willing to bring his back up, and after my lessons with Kate really drilling into me about keeping my leg on to the jumps, I'm better at keeping them on him too. And working toward strengthening my core so that I can remain more centered if he does anything.

There's not much you can do trotting a few laps and not doing any lateral work or circles or transitions, so I'm mostly working on the connection. He's into the bridle a lot more than he was previously, so I can affect where the connection is, meaning that I can change the shape of his spindly little neck easier. I've got him reaching out a bit better since starting to ride him again, and he's bringing his back up better as well. The hind legs feel great, though he is still tending to push slightly unevenly, which I'm hoping to address with backing up in some circles and then eventually adding in lateral work.

His lips were green from the grass

With all of this going well so far, I've given the barns notice that I will be staying put for the time being. He'll move to pasture when the rains stop and the pasture dries out. I still want him to go, mostly for financial reasons, as well as getting him feeling better mentally. The barn where he's going is smaller and doesn't have a lot of the perks (no clinicians/dressage trainers, no lights, less arenas, and a small, narrow covered ring) but it has what we need. I can't wait to see his face when he sees where he's going to be living, hopefully from here on out.

Overall I'm having a little more fun on him recently. I still need to figure out what to do long term, but for now, it's been a blast to have this horse back in work. We'll see what the future holds when we get there!

Twenty One

Yesterday Rico turned 21 years old! Unfortunately for him, we couldn't go out drinking due to the terrifying growth on his liver. And come on, Rico, it was a Sunday night, girl's gotta work. He's a party animal.

As of January this year, I've had Rico for twelve years. There was a point in December where I was really hoping we'd make it to these anniversaries, and here we are!

Rico remains the most amazing horse I've had the privilege of working with and learning from and I'm so glad that he's getting the retirement he deserves, even if he was trying to die on us.

Some memories...

The first time I took Rico to the beach in like.. 2009ish. He was
kind of a crazy horse.

Smiling while cantering around the arena before going into the
ring at GP for the first time with him. Also riding crooked so he
will stop doing tempi changes down the long side. 

Jumping in a Bernie Traurig clinic

My first ride on him after I started bringing him back from
surgery on his DDFT

Whoa there wild stallion

I laughed about this with Rico, if TC ever did this to me I'd
probably cry lol 

I taught him to beg

All I want to do is put my shadbelly on one night and drink wine

As for an update, Rico is actually doing much better! No more fever, he's eating well and putting on weight, and he's very perky, I've even ridden him a few times (just at a walk). But we took him down to the hospital for an ultrasound to look at the infected lymph node on his liver and it still isn't down. More antibiotics for him. Vet said that it probably wouldn't be totally over with until April or May. I have a trail trials in early June that I want to take him to, so fingers crossed it's April and not May so I can actually get him fit for that. Or poor innocent Riot may be subjected to it.

Factory Reset

Sunday after flying home from San Diego, I pretty much headed straight to the barn. Poor, neglected bf got to spend the fifteen minutes in the car with me driving me to my car and then I abandoned him to go walk TC.

Orrrrr make a bad life choice? Sunday afternoon. 

After some discussion with lots of people over the last week or so, I had been wavering about the move to pasture. I do want him in pasture, but I am concerned about the mud in there right now. It's awful. Like ankle deep and very sticky/slick. Not good for tendons. One or two more months at his current barn would be so much better for his leg (well, both of them).

But I also don't want to pour money into him anymore/stay attached/etc- the one post I wrote about that still stands. So I finally asked myself: what would make me think that paying the extra money (it's not thaaat much but it's not nothing) to keep him at his current barn for two more months worth it? And I decided that I would need to be able to ride him. And the good rides needed to outweigh the bad.

So I grabbed my saddle from the ranch, and my helmet, and drove to the barn.

I tacked him up and he acted all spooky about the girth being removed from the top of the saddle, but other than that he was a good boy- pretty good for a horse who had a day off (and no calming supplement) the day before. And he hasn't had a saddle on him for a month!

We hand walked for 20 minutes and then I trotted him out. He went to play and we had a brief discussion about NOT playing and then he was perfect. And sound!

I took him in the covered arena and did some trot sets in hand (they don't allow longeing but you can do ground work!). I had grabbed side reins so that he could start building strength (the stronger he is, the better for pasture), so I put them on and just jogged with him. Good for me too because I hate running. SO MUCH. But I'll run for the sake of my horse I guess.

Tuesday night

After about two total laps (with a walk break each lap), I decided to get on. My rule was this: get off the second I start feeling iffy. We did some ground work first, then I hopped on.

He immediately moved off my leg and onto the bit! And then balked, threatened vaguely to rear, got smacked on the ass once, and then trotted off like YES MA'AM WE ARE TROTTING LET'S DO THIS. I gave him a place to go but kept him on the bit and bending- something he resisted at first in favor of shaking his head and getting passagey. But no hint of bolting, I thwapped him for the head shaking and he got serious again. I put him into the right rein and immediately he connected. He's weak, as there's no more topline on him, but the amazing connection was still in tact. He was so light and maneuverable, so forward, so adjustable... all the stuff I miss so much about him. It was all back.

We trotted two laps. No spooking, no bolting, no rearing, no bucking. He thought about being bad but I kept him with me.

After that, we walked and I pet him a lot. I could tell he was so so so happy, a totally different horse than the one I had a couple months ago when the fiasco started. We marched over to the mirror like we always did, took a selfie, and then I immediately started crying. Ugly tears. I got off lest my happy tears turn into sad tears when he bolts again (he didn't). We walked around the arena, me just crying like some kind of crazy person.

Wednesday morning

My mom was surprised

I'm not getting my hopes up. I'm not making any decisions this week. I'm not going to make any assumptions about what my next rides on him (if they happen) will be like. I'm not going to try to dissect why he was better that day. Because I've only ridden him three times. He was great on Wednesday morning and up on Tuesday evening, but was super good. Each ride he's getting more connected, more rideable, more focused. It's like he's thinking finally, we're back to work. His diminished work ethic is back with a vengeance, even if he still asks "really" at the beginning of each ride.

But again, need more data points. Not making any decisions, all decisions still stand as of today.

At this point I'm just happy. Happy my horse was sound. Happy I got to ride him and have a few fun rides on him.

San Diego Adventures

I spent this weekend in San Diego! I met L almost two years ago, and we became fast friends. I met Peony (and Nicole who couldn't come, boo) shortly after that and ever since we've exchanged taco pictures and pony complaints in our little text message groups.

When L moved, I wanted to visit right away, but being unemployed with a horse whose life force seems to be powered by draining my bank account, I had to push the visit out. So we all coordinated to make early February work!

It was over so fast! I miss them already :( 

I left work early on Friday and headed to the airport. The rain delayed me and I ended up using up my monthly quota for running to just barely make my flight. Phew! Peony and I both landed within about 30 minutes of each other and then we were off!

Friday night we stayed up way, way, way too late talking about ponies, which was to be expected. We had already eaten dinner but still managed to make room for fresh tortilla chips and salsa at the 24 hour taco place near L and T's place.

After what was probably not enough sleep, we had some coffee and headed out for some adventures on Saturday!

Taco perfection

Seriously these nachos were the best nachos I've ever had

Our first stop was Mary's. I'd heard amazing things about this store and was stoked to finally get to see it. And it totally lived up to expectations! Luckily having one sick horse and one unrideble/lame one means that I didn't see much that I wanted immediately. But I did makes list of things I did want. On the list was two pairs of Roekl gloves- one navy with white piping and one white with bling (er remember me not showing dressage anymore? Well, I'll totally enjoy them schooling too!), a bareback pad with a water bottle holder and a pouch for trail riding, and boots. Oh man, boots.

I usually ride in paddock boots, half chaps, and spurs, but my paddock boots are breaking down quite rapidly. I hate dealing with the laces and they take a while to take off and put on, which makes me ride in my dublin boots probably more than I should. I've thought about the type of boot I want, and since choosing to broaden my disciplines, I need sort of an all around boot (so not a dressage boot because they're hard to jump in) but if by chance I am able to, I might throw TC in a show or two this year to increase his value (you know, if he isn't lame or crazy).

Enter the Ariat Volant S. It was more than I wanted to pay for a schooling boot, but man are they gorgeous and comfortable. I was fit at Mary's to a 6.5 slim, tall calf (weird because my 7 regular tall Ariat Maestros are too small now...) and wanted so badly to grab them. But I'll be waiting for a sale to order them because it's not urgent since they won't fit over all the socks I wear in the winter. Still, I want them now even just to wander around my house in them.

I want to live here

After Mary's, we headed out to the horse park to see L's barn and meet Wisko and Kadee. The barn is AMAZING. Like, I've never been to a barn like that. I lost count at twelve arenas, most of which are show rings that aren't really used except for shows, and the barns were so nice. Tons of wash racks and cross ties.

The horses were super sweet but Wisko made an excellent first impression on me with how much he looked like Rico. They're both Holsteiners, so maybe that's why. They had a similar expression and personality, both GP horses in their own disciplines. Made me nostalgic for Rico being rideable. Man I hope I can ride my horses this year!

Wisko!

After the horse park, we zipped over to Carey's barn to meet her and Cosmo. They were having a lesson so we pet Cosmo on the nose and watched for a bit. Cosmo is SUPER cute, I love his derby face! It was fun to watch them go together and it made me itch to jump more.

We headed out to lunch at L and T's favorite taco spot for tacos and nachos. Oh man. Guys. This place. I really don't know what I'm going to do between now and when I'm in SD again because tacos and possibly Mexican food as a whole have now been ruined for me. It was SO GOOD.

Back at the house, we relaxed and talked ponies before heading out to get boba and ice cream at this place that Peony had found and kept messaging us pictures of for the last couple months. It was amazing, though by that time I was super food-ed out.

We ended up playing a game called Coup that night with T and Carey. I immediately put it in my amazon shopping cart, it was super fun, even though it was a game about lying and I'm the worst liar in those sorts of situations. I think I lied once lol but I did manage to win a game! We also watched Harry and Snowman, a movie I've wanted to watch since everyone started talking about it. It was SO GOOD and I think I got some more good refreshing on jumping position... sorta.

Later that night after Carey had gone home, T was hungry so we went to a 24/7 diner and had a huge milkshake, some fried zucchini, and a salad (lol at our food choices). After texting a picture of the milkshake to bf, he texted back "are you guys just eating all weekend?" and then immediately "because that's totally fine, I'm just wondering." Errr yes, basically just food and ponies.

Sooooo good

We stayed up late talking again and tried to get L to write a book/movie/play about the beginning of her and T's relationship. Ideas for titles include "He's not my boyfriend" and "He got me an exceptionally thoughtful gift for my birthday but he's probably just a nice person" among others that I probably don't want on this blog.

Sunday morning came too fast, and after talking blogs, ponies, and future visits over an amazing breakfast L made, we were at the airport saying our goodbyes.

It was a whirlwind trip and I'm simultaneously so so glad that we did this and sad that it's over! We'll for sure be back down there before the year is over, hopefully a few times.