Where Things Are At

TC has been loving life in his new big paddock. And I've been loving TC in his new big paddock, which has been really refreshing.

I moved him a few days after he turned my foot into a pancake, mostly because he was going completely nuts without being able to be ridden. I hit my last straw when he realized that I had zero leverage over him and he got loose galloping around in the round pen two days in a row. I was super done with him after that, tossed him in the paddock, and ignored him for nearly a week (well, I mean I fed him and gave him pets, but no riding/longeing/etc to let my foot heal).

Then last Wednesday I took him out to longe because I had mentioned kinda wanting to sell him to a friend who had asked for a video. And after almost a week off, he just... went to work. No bolting, no launching, no rearing, no bad behavior at all. He was super chill about it all. I even hopped on him in my Dublin boots (it's still too painful to use my new boots, boo) and he was great. No problems. I let him start the canter work that day, even though I had wanted to wait another month, both legs have been holding up okay with more work, leading me to believe that maybe that left front one wasn't as serious as it appeared. I dunno, I was in a no-fucks-given mood so just put him back to work (slowly, but not restricting him to just trot).

Ground pole champions

The good behavior continued the next day. I rode Thursday night in the dark in the dressage court and ran him through Training 2 (which was super easy for him, but it was the only test I could remember). He was fine, nervous, but fine. Friday morning I rode him and he was great again, we rode in the jumping arena and were ground pole champions of the world. Then Saturday, he was great. And Sunday too. What is this madness?

It's not to say that he hasn't had his little quirks- on Sunday he had a bolt when he turned away from a pile of stuff near the trail course, about 50% of the time the first walk to trot transition is balky, and he really thought that a small dog was going to eat him and didn't want to walk by it. He is a young horse... but the rides have been really good and really productive! I don't mind spooking or being dumb, I just mind never getting to do the fun stuff because he's so nuts (and when he scares me, I hate that).

As for the rides, I'm mostly dumping on movements right now. He feels great in the connection, his back feels like it's suctioned to the panels of my saddle, and he's really well balanced laterally and longitudinally, aside from me struggling to track left so I make him tilt his head a bit that way when I'm not paying attention. The quality of the gaits feels great, I actually love his canter now. I hated it for so long, I didn't think he had any potential in it. But it's so easy to collect (well, to get a Second level amount of collection at least, he's not that fancy lol), I actually over collect it sometimes and he gets frustrated with me because he can't hold it and breaks. Sorry horse! The trot isn't as big as it used to be, mostly because he's a lot more relaxed now and he's a lot less fit. I think the trot will be back to magical levels when he's stronger. No complaints with what it's like now, it's got a ton of scope, just not as much reach as before.

That tiny dog was going to kill him

The leg yield is super solid at the trot, though not steep enough for 1-3 just yet I don't think. It'd be a tough movement if it is possible. When I push him more sideways, he gets retracted in the neck and isn't the most rideable in it when it gets steep. Generally he loses rideability in the lateral work, so that's a huge hump that we have to crawl over.

The shoulder-in is great. I'm working to ride it a little less bent tracking left to address the head tilting and my inability to get him to really stay connected properly on the right side. To the right, he feels wonderful. The next steps here will be to play with transitions within the shoulder-in I think, which is super fun.

I'm installing haunches-in currently. The angle is great at the walk, but he gets stilted and either off the bit or retracted in the neck, depending on how much I get on his case about it. The trot, well, it exists, but it's not very good. I'm mostly using shoulder-in to renvers to put it on so that he connects it to the shoulder-in a bit, that's been super helpful. Once as we have haunches-in, I'm sure we'll have half pass because the mechanic is similar enough.

The walk pirouettes are coming along! I want him snappier behind and I want them smaller, but those will come with collection at the walk, which I absolutely will not TOUCH for at least nine months. He's got a really nice walk and I'm trying to take my time to develop it. Adding collection too soon in the walk is the first step toward ruining that walk- ask me how I know (I totally ruined Rico's walk for a few years). So right now they're big and slow, but the mechanic is correct so I'm happy about that.

I totes rode him bareback from his paddock to the cross ties

The canter work, as I said, feels great. I'm mostly addressing straightness riding toward the mirrors. To the right, he wants to swing his haunches out and ride almost like a shoulder-in. To the left he wants to bring his haunches in and his shoulders-out. So we're basically riding the opposite- haunches in to the right and shoulder-in to the left.

I got bored one day and asked for a walk to canter, then worked on them when he totally picked it up no problem. They EXIST, which is really good news- the canter to walk has always existed when he has enough muscle on him, but the walk canters have been really questionable. Now the transition itself is reliable, but the throughness is probably 50/50 depending on how I set him up. I'm channeling Jeremy (screw up with confidence) when I accidentally ask wrong. Yeah it's helpful when I ask exactly at the right moment, but he should figure it out if I ask wrong too. Gotta build me an amateur horse if I'm going to keep him.

The other super fun thing is that I rode some flying changes this weekend! He's not ready at all to work on them- I like to have a better simple change and have counter canter when I teach them, but the idea with playing with them now is to get him understanding that this is a thing he will be asked to do in the future. I rode each of them twice over the course of two rides. His left to right one is one stride late behind but VERY on the aids. Like he never anticipated and it was exactly when I asked. I'm fairly decent at fixing late behind changes, so it doesn't bother me that he's late at this stage in his training. He'll figure it out when we really need them, which will probably be this fall or winter. The other one, the right to left, is a bit more questionable on the aid, but it's more likely to be clean than the other one.

I might have a death wish?

It was such a fun week with him, and I feel like I owe my friends and family a lot of presents because everyone was with me for a week when he was being terrible. I'm not really sure what I want to do in the long run with him. On the one hand, when he's good, he's the most fun I've ever had on a horse. He learns SO FAST and LOVES dressage. You can just tell this horse wants so desperately to work and do dressage, I would have killed for this work ethic when I was riding Rico.

He also is so fun because he is just built for this work. Don't jump to conclusions about that- it doesn't mean that this is easy on him or that he doesn't have weaknesses. He curls, retracts in his neck, is weirdly slow off the leg and hot at the same time, he carries tension in his lower back, he's super short backed so the lateral work is really hard for him, and he struggles to get his hind legs under him as much as they need to be. But with my ability to manage those weaknesses pretty easily (since Rico had similar ones) and my focus on getting his basics picture perfect before doing much with him, he's just figuring all this out super easily.

Then obviously on the other hand, he is a bit too much horse for me. I know it sounds weird to some people. But just because I'm an accomplished dressage rider, doesn't mean that I can handle crazy young horse stuff. I'm not technically an amateur, but I live an amateur lifestyle, which means riding alone in the dark (not anymore!) and being on a major budget for things like lessons/support. I think if I had the money to have him in full training and hand him off on the weeks he was being bad, it'd be a no brainer to keep him for a long time. Or if I had more time to ride in the mid morning, it'd be much easier. But he's a lot of horse, and he's put me through a lot. So we'll see. For right now, things are going well and I'm happy with him. Not sure what today's ride will entail. I might be redacting this whole thing.

Thinking that he might have to destroy the other
foot too, just for symmetry