Mind Over Matter

One of the biggest things that has changed in the last week is my attitude toward this horse. I don't think it will last forever, but I'm feeling tentatively positive. I think he's a good horse with some behavior issues (like most horses have at one point or another) and that I just lack confidence about them, which, along with the suspensory and not living out for so long, has made them worse. 

I sat down with myself last week and basically told myself that either I turn into the rider that he needs me to be, or I sell him. So I contacted a trainer friend about him and then as you know, started playing with him last week to get him fit so that people could try him, and realized that he had calmed down a bit with the new living situation, boosting my confidence. 

I'm not silly enough to think that this is it, that he's fixed and that I'll feel confident on him forever, but I'm just trying to enjoy him for now. The more training I can put on him now when he's good, the better he'll land later on if I have to sell him. Or with more training and keeping my confidence up, I can keep him. I dunno, I'm not married to either idea. I just want to enjoy him if I am riding him. 

And part of enjoying him was taking a lesson on Monday morning, which sadly didn't end up being the magical fun dressage time that I had hoped it would, but was still somewhat useful. What I didn't realize is how picky I needed to be with instructors. It turns out that I've gotten even more obnoxious about how I like to be taught now that I have TC, versus Rico who was generally a solid citizen, and now that I'm not the rider I used to be. I thought it'd get easier if I wasn't as good and if my horse was at a lower level, but it's not. 

I LOVE riding outside, until it gets hot or I miss
the mirrors

I first need to say that my not-that-great lesson probably occurred because of how I introduced my horse. I wanted to be honest and admit to my fear problems and TC's history (and likely future) of bolting. Because when I teach a new student, I err on the side of treating them like they don't have fear issues and that the horse doesn't have behavioral issues until they let me know, which has lead to some tears on their part. I always tell people- PLEASE let me know anything I need to know, such as past issues, fear issues, soundness issues. So I'm pretty honest about these things with new instructors. 

But it can really paint the way you are perceived, and that's what happened this weekend. When I say things like "he does have a bolt in him and it does scare me, but he's doing much better and I'm actually not scared right now," some people are going to stop before the but and ignore the part where he's actually doing well right now and I'm not looking for a fix on something that he's not currently doing.

Add to that the horse's unfortunate reputation at my barn for being a nut, and horse people's general desire to gossip, and I had a lesson that probably was better suited for how he was going a few months ago when I was actively having bolting problems. He certainly still has it in him and I'm not stupid, I know he's going to do it again, but I'm trying to give him the benefit of the doubt and trusting him a bit more. Riding defensively with him just makes him worse. Assuming he's going to bolt almost guarantees that he does it. 

And he was SO GOOD. Let me go over that first before I get back to complaining. We rode real early, which he's not used to (and the time change made it worse). It was cold and he hadn't had his breakfast, so he wasn't perfect, but he was so good. A little looky and I probably should have cantered earlier in the lesson since that wears him out a bit and he chills out. Oh well, hind sight and all that. 

His shoulder-in felt great, I kept up my work to get him more rideable in it as we went along. I need to be able to change the angle, the bend, the connection, the step, etc. He kind of clunks into it and stays put. That's great, because it means that he isn't wiggling about or resisting me, but it also means that as I get his gaits going better, he's going to stay the same in the lateral work. He'll be this fancy looking horse on the short side, then he'll dump into his smaller trot for the lateral work. I need rideability. 

I love this. I heard a noise and he was freaking out.
Apparently he got his tail stuck on my jacket button
and I found him like this

The leg yields are the same way, I want to get him just more rideable in them. I find it a bit harder in the leg yield to do that work, since in shoulder-in I don't lose the angle so much when I ask him to bend more, but the leg yield just isn't meant to have tons of bend. I think when we can do half pass, leg yield to half pass transitions will be our friend. 

The canter felt great. She had me ride more over the ground, which made me smile. I love that we've flipped on this issue. For so long it was us trying to get him to slow down, now he's too slow. His canter felt amazing when I pushed him forward, and he started to really oscillate his neck and use his back!! He's never wanted to use his back at the canter before. I can see this being a game changer for us. 

The trot got better and better as we rode. We played with adding more energy and he stepped right up and I got closer to his super fancy trot. I just love how he feels when he's so INTO the bridle and really lifting over his back. Makes me feel like passage is a half halt away, which it is absolutely not, but that's the trot I want.

Unfortunately the lesson wasn't as good as the horse. I was really hoping to be able to get into the nitty gritty details of the connection on the left side (I think it's a right rein problem and I want help fixing it, it's so similar to what Rico did so I know it's me) and gain some tools on how to improve the lateral work. It was more about how to deal with his bad behavior (that he wasn't doing). But I did take some good things away. 

She pointed out that I needed to make sure that he lowers his neck when I take back on the inside rein- this will help when he does go to bolt because his neck comes up when he does it. I also need to be quicker on the uptake when he does stick his head in the air- something I haven't been as quick about lately and I know that's a problem for the dressage too. He can get 1-2 steps in of WTF IS THAT before I manage to put him back where he needs to be. 

I was feeling okay about it because he was just looking, not bolting, but a) he can look with his head down and b) when he does start bolting again, I'll have more control. Not to say that he can't bolt with his chin on his chest, because that has happened. If horse wants to bolt, horse bolts. I'm working on turning that off or toning it down, rather than trying to prevent it physically, though that is important too.

Saturday, I can't wait to wear my nice boots :( 

Lateral work is also really important, and I got a nice lecture that by six, he should be better at it. I had to defend myself because he's not naturally talented at it, he's not been ridden consistently, and with soft tissue injuries, lateral work can be detrimental, so even when I could ride him this summer, we didn't start the lateral work until the fall. 

So yeah he should be further along for six if I've been riding him since he was three... but I started riding him at the end of his three year old year and he's actually not even six yet. So it's two years, with the first four months not doing any lateral work because he was too green, and then toss in another break for nine months for suspensory rehab. And this winter we had about 2-3 months where we were dicking around with our question mark rehab and trying not to get swept away by all the rain. 

But he still needs to be better at the lateral work. I guess I just need to harass him more. I didn't get any new tools for that, but it's not like I've never taught a horse lateral work before. I'll just keep plugging away. There was no mention of the quality of his lateral work (other than that it needed to be more prompt to my aid), so I'm hoping that means that it looked okay. 

I think he's over angled in the right shoulder in, and over bent left. And I think his leg yield right is steep enough but is crooked, while his left leg yield is more correct but less steep. But I guess it was fine enough. I do know that my pickiness levels can be a bit much sometimes.

After our ride over the weekend

The thing that I can't let go of, is that after talking about how he did have these tendencies, my instructor seemed nervous. And that freaks me out. I've worked with a lot of riders with fear, and the worst thing you can do to them is make them feel that they SHOULD be scared while they're riding. Either through tone of voice, or the words they use or the actions, everything needs to be soothing and no big deal. If it's seriously a dangerous situation, help me get to a point where I can get off and then tell me to get off and talk to me about it. Because if I get from an instructor that I should be scared, I get scared, then he gets scared, and then he's more likely to do the stuff that scares me, which is scary and I don't want it to happen. 

I was a bit worried about riding on Tuesday night. It was supposed to be warm, and I did my best to push those thoughts and some other family drama out of my head and just continue to enjoy my horse. Spoiler alert (since this post was intitially written to go out Monday), he was AMAZING, we test rode T3 and worked on lateral work and walk-trot transitions.

I really didn't want some of the language used in the lesson and the focus on the bolting to cause me to question riding right now. I've actually been enjoying this horse for the last week. It's been really fun. I know it's not forever. I know the bolting will come back or he'll scare me in some other way and I'll lose confidence. I know that there's a good chance (actually no chance, this is 100% true) he's way, WAY too much horse for me and that I should sell him. But being able to ride him right now has been fun. And I'd hate for one lesson to derail that. It's fine if he derails it by being an asshole. It's fine if I derail it by getting nervous again. But I don't want to let an outside source derail it. 

I think I might find an event trainer to ride with instead. I need someone who laughs off his behavior and makes me feel like it's no big deal. Stop telling me (however inadvertently) that my fear is justified, people!