Spreading Out

The thing I love about my barn is the private tack sheds/rooms that they allow people to have. When I boarded there with Rico, I had a small portable shed thing, plus my trunk. I didn't need much since Rico was only there in the winter.

When I moved in with TC, I got given a larger shed, and that was awesome! But as time went on, I started feeling like I was outgrowing it. 

Very luckily, a friend was moving out and abandoning her large tack room. Like with a door. And a lock. And electricity. I asked the BM if I could grab it when she left, and he said yes. I was skeptical because at one point we were going to do a big tack room swap and she was going to leave it for another giant one and I was going to get hers, only to have it all fall through. So until I got the key, I didn't get too excited. I actually had a bad dream before I moved in that while I was moving my stuff in, she moved back and wanted it back and then I had no tack room.

IT HAS A DOOR

But now it's mine! All last weekend and the weekend before I worked on it and got it all organized. I still have a few things to do. But it's so nice to spread out. I was really happy with how I was able to organize and fit everything into my old tack shed, but with this tack room it feels like everything is so accessible!

To have electricity is ridiculous. I need to replace the lightbulbs in there, but the lights will be great in the winter when it's dark. I can also charge my equisense overnight (and my phone in there since it's nice to entertain myself while cleaning tack). I can also pay a little extra in board to pay for the electricity for a mini fridge! I feel like that might not be worth it since we're going into winter, but it's an option.

I'm also BEYOND excited to have a place to change that isn't the bathroom. I don't mind changing in the bathroom, but it takes extra time to walk over there and time is precious when I'm riding on a work day because as I found out the hard way getting so sick so often this last year, every minute I spend wasting time at the barn is a minute I have to take out of my sleep schedule. Ugh.

I'm not quite done with it yet. I still need to put my saddle rack on the wall rather than using the portable one, bring my trunk in (it's still out in front of his stall being dirty), and hang a few more things up, and get a mini fridge. But I got everything else mostly set up so I figured that it was time to share!

Immediately to the right of the door (left as you
walk in), too many bridle hooks for one lower level
horse, whip rack, and a white board that I will probably
end up hanging somewhere

Standing in the doorway. Going to hang my saddle
racks up where the saddle is and directly above it.
Above that I put a blanket bar to dry his super gross
pads on. And the previous person left those shelves
which are SO AWESOME

Grain station! And my saddle racks are between
the grain and the shelves

Hooks on the right side mostly hold longeing
stuff, but also random stuff like a hoodie and my
bareback pad

Behind the door is a bunch of random sprays
and stuff, as well as my boot and helmet bags

Jumping Bean (Sorta)

Monday morning I felt a little bad for TC, not getting to do anything but dressage for weeks. He doesn't care. He likes dressage. He likes wandering around the ranch to see his donkey friends and his cat friends and his horse friends. But I still felt like he needed to do something else.

TC was cleared to jump last year, but I decided against it because I was worried about it. He also was kind of a nut and I wasn't in the mood to jump a nut. Then this year I haven't jumped him mostly because I feel like he's so fragile and wanted to get him into the rated show ring first and foremost. But on Monday I wandered into the jumping arena and saw a bunch of poles out. Yay poles!

We may have taken the whole jump down a few times but in the
end it was great!

We warmed up and trotted/cantered over the poles. TC has gotten super good at cantering over poles now that he can actually lengthen/shorten his canter without struggling so much.  

There were two small cross rails set up in the arena. After playing over the poles, I decided to canter over one of them. And TC very neatly halted square in front of it. Because as far as he could tell, I had just stopped steering and ran him into this random object. I came around again in trot and we crashed over it. Hmmmm. 

Now, it's been a while since I jumped and all, but I'm pretty certain that TC needs to jump OVER the fence. I came around again and he finally did get to the other side, I kicked him forward and then praised him like he had just cleared a puissance jump. 

And then he was SO GOOD. We didn't do much, just trotted over the jumps with him starting to look for them and move up nicely to them without halting afterward. Then eventually we biffed again at the canter. I saw a distance and told him to take it, he was like "WOT" and ignored the fence to try to listen to me, then crashed through it. Sorry pony, I will let you learn to do your job. I know the best thing is to just let him figure out where his feet are but I'm a control freak dressage rider now. But after that, we got a good canter fence and ended there.

How chill is this horse now? 

It was so fun to jump him! I don't think we're very good at it, nor do I think he really liked it all that much. But it was a good way to do some cross training. I think that if he stays sound, it will be a good thing for him to learn to do, even just to be a better all around horse. 

He got his oatmeal bath, which he hates/loves because he wants to eat it, and a lot of cookies afterward. Then I had mild anxiety for the rest of the day worrying about his leg. That worry is just never going to go away. But I'm glad that I'm being brave enough to let him live a full life. When Rico got hurt, I kept him locked in (I mean he had a huge paddock) and wrapped and we didn't do any trail riding or jumping for a long time.

The next day his leg looked fine and he was sound on it yesterday, so fingers crossed that jumping is a thing we can do sometimes!

Test Riding 2-1

Sunday after riding Rico on the trail, I still had TC to ride. Saturday's ride had been fine, though not the best ride we'd had. He was still kinda crusty feeling. I ended the day giving him a bath with this oatmeal thing that was supposed to help sooth his skin and also attacked his yellowish tail.

I didn't get to the barn until later on Sunday, so no one was around. I decided to ride in the dressage court and probably test ride. I'm starting to a little bit freak out about the idea of moving him up to First level this fall. I think the problem is just me not test riding enough. Those tests are EASY for him. All of the tests. But I needed convincing.

Hi mom! When will you realize that First level (and a lot of
Second) is easy for me?

We warmed up well, though I struggled a bit with the geometry again. About half of the way through the ride when I started sitting the trot I had a lightbulb moment... I can ride the geometry really well... in sitting trot. Oh. Even going into canter after sitting led me to be more accurate. I dunno what it is, but it's like I take it more seriously! Weird. So I'll be sitting the trot more often I think.

After working a bit on the canter, I decided to look up a test to ride. I probably should have ridden 1-1 or 1-2 because that's what I'm thinking of riding, but I opted to ride 2-1. The reasoning was that before I rode in a show at Training, the first couple of First level tests were pretty doable. Not show ready, but doable. I figured that if I could put in a decent 2-1 test, I'd feel better about doing 1-1 at a show.

So I picked up the sitting trot and headed up centerline.

Wandering

It was SHOCKINGLY good. I mean really, I've never sat his medium trot and the first time I tried it was in this test. He started doing it out of the corner, then slowed down and put his ears back on me like "erm are you not... uh... okay" and then shot forward again. The shoulder-in is pretty good, but you know what is a bit drunk? The turn across the middle. Super weird since that rides fine in 1-3, but the shoulder-in threw us off. Oh well.

The halt and rein back was good, I've been working on his halt lately so that was nice. I sort of forgot the test (I hadn't ridden this version of 2-1 in a while) so I used the walk work to look it up again.

The canter transitions in the serpentine were ALL CLEAN, no trot steps and relatively uphill. I've never ridden simple changes on him (just the transitions) so that was a new challenge and he did want to get a bit wiggly right after the downward transition (but not in the upward).

He is... not a majestic looking horse

I rode the first medium canter rather conservative, but it was good with clear transitions. The ten meter canter circle is doable but a bit tricky for him. I really had to ride him around it vs just turning him. He's a pro at counter canter, though we have done exactly zero canter to walk transitions out of it, so that one had trot steps, which is fine. The transition directly in front of the judge was so good though, good pony!

Bad pony though, since in the next medium canter I pushed for a bit more and he was like HELL YES I AM SO GOOD AT GOING FAST and downshifted and took off with me. Okay. So we circled, I put him back on the line and made him do it again under control. But after that the canter felt super good, I really need to use more medium canter to improve his gaits! The ten meter circle felt great, and we're super good at counter canter to trot.

The next medium trot was much better than the first one, since he was an old pro at having his rider bounce around slightly behind the motion (horse has a TROT). And of course, centerline went well too since we've been working on that.

That mane needs to stop

Overall I was STOKED that we were able to do that test. At the end I looked up 2-2 and decided against it because I wanted to school the counter canter pattern and the simple changes out of counter canter before actually riding it. But other than that, it seemed super doable. Not perfect, but certainly not out of our realm.

So instead of another test, we worked on the canter-walk and walk-canter transitions on a spiral in and out to help him with the level of collection. Then we did a bunch of walk-trot transitions because you can never do too many walk-trot transitions.

It feels so good to have him schooling all this fun stuff. We do our basics every day in warm up and some days we never leave that place (like Saturday), but on the days we're pushing the envelope, he's really stepping up. Jeremy said that this is still the levels a horse like TC will find easy, but I just feel like he steps up into hard work so well. Hopefully that continues as we move up, and hopefully he continues to be willing to work hard!

Rico's Big Adventure

Sunday morning I had wanted to haul TC out, but I was really not feeling it. I couldn't make up my mind what I wanted to do, and honestly I just wanted to ride at home. The next three weekends I won't be home, so having a weekend to just ride sounded better than having to deal with him off the property. It may not be setting me up well for fall shows (one of which is the weekend after those three weekends off), but I don't think TC minded. He was still crusty from his hives.

Wanting to get going!

One thing that I've been giving myself a hard time about recently is spending time with Rico. I feel terrible that I can't give him more time. There's good reasons for that, I really don't have much time in my schedule. Weekends are often booked and on the days I take off from riding during the week, I usually have errands to do.

There are some less good reasons for it too. Rico isn't as enthused about riding as TC is, so a lot of the time he doesn't seem to want to be ridden. He's also out of shape and not at all strong like he used to be, which is a constant reminder that he's getting older. I'm scared of that. But honestly, I don't want to regret not spending every chance I have with him. So I decided to do something with him this last weekend for sure.

But like I said, he's always less than enthused about riding at home. And it makes me sad/frustrated/full of feelings to have to MAKE him walk down the road. So on Sunday I threw him in the trailer, and Sunny (my mom came too, yay family trail rides), and headed out to the trails.

SO EXCITED

Rico obviously can't climb a bunch of hills, but the local trail facility has a flat loop that's a couple miles long. So we headed out there.

Rico was HILARIOUS about the trailer. I packed a bareback pad and his hackamore, then got him out and brushed him. He was so excited. He knew that the trailer was packed so he was wiggly in the cross ties and eager to just GET IN THE TRAILER. Once as Sunny was out too, he was just beside himself. He was pissed when Sunny got in first and tried to crowd my mom as she was coming out. I had to hold him back like crazy.

Once there, I unclipped him and he immediately ran backwards to the end of the trailer to get out... the door wasn't open yet. Hold your horses, Rico. I quickly tacked him up and hopped on and he would NOT stand still to let my mom get Sunny ready. I let him walk around the trailer a bunch and then we were off!

Trail along the pathway

The loop went well, it's a little boring, but Rico made it fun by being so enthused about it. He kept trying to stop and talk to everyone along the way and power walked the whole time. He even got to trot a little bit! His trot felt so much better than it did this last spring when he was still recovering from his two internal infections. I even slipped my leg toward the passage aid and he wiggled his neck. He can't passage anymore, but he can sass me about it.

After the loop, we thought about taking Rico up to the second gate, which involved a bit of climbing. I decided against that, since I wanted to keep it easy and fun for Rico. The horse is the sort of horse who will literally work himself until he falls down (has happened a few times) so while he probably would have been okay, I wanted to be really careful. Next time we can try a little more maybe.

He kept wandering off the path

Despite having more feelings than I wanted to about it, I'm glad Rico and I got to hit the trail. After I'm done traveling for the year (I only have one, mayyyybe two weekends that I'm in town between now and Thanksgiving), I want to try to ride him a bit more. TC is definitely going to get some time off this winter, so hopefully I can get some good Rico time in.

TC is super fun, and my ride on him on Sunday was incredible, but Rico will always be my heart horse. I'm grateful for every day I get to spend with him!

Not Always Perfect

TC's hives were much better by Friday morning, but I decided to give him another dose of the meds and then wait until the evening to ride. He was NOT pleased with that. I mean he likes food, but by the time I got there on Friday night he was a bit beside himself. He was trotting back and forth in his paddock screaming at me. 

Lucky for him, his hives were all the way down and all that remained was crusty skin where they all had been. I felt terrible, thinking that it might be that he's allergic to the new fly spray I got. But there's nothing I could do in that moment, except let him get his energy out with some work. 

Wandering

TC has been so good lately, I almost forget what it was like when he was not good. I mean sure we get the occasional bolt, but that's usually caused by my riding (if I get too tight in my hips or put too much pressure on him) or his energy + "scary" thing nearby. I was definitely prepared for the ride to not go well. He was in a mood because of his skin being sensitive, but still very energetic.

We walked around the ranch a little and everything seemed fine, but then he saw his neighbor who was riding in the clinic. He normally doesn't care what his neighbor is doing, but he was really distracted by the neighbor and then was a little upset when I told him that he had to walk past the arena and go into the covered. It was getting dark. 

I had to get off and turn on the lights when we got there, then hopped back on at the mounting block. He wanted to trot off right away and I stopped him and told him that he had to wait. I put on some music, then put my leg on. Apparently stopping him was THE LAST STRAW. I had no idea we had so few straws that day (he wasn't in pain, probably just uncomfortable, keep reading). He flipped his head up and started shaking it, backing up and turning on his hind end. 

His mane needs to be trimmed... ugh

I put my leg on again with some spur but then got a rear threat from him with more balking. So I turned him in a circle and tap tap tap-ed with the whip until he was walking more forward, then kicked him up. He picked up the canter and we cantered until he had less feelings. 

After that he was great. He settled right into work. His canter felt so soft and connected. It's finally getting to the point where I feel like I don't have to support him so much and can just ride him in it. The trot (when we finally got to it) was really springy and well connected. It was one of the first days I rode with the mirrors in a while (been in the court a lot) and he looks so much less like a derpy young horse and more like a real dressage horse. Go pony!

I of course didn't push anything. We kept it fun with a lot of praise and breaks. After the initial meltdown, we had no more. I think he was just feeling uncomfortable and sensitive mentally. Those moments are becoming fewer and further between as he matures, and our ride on Saturday was a hundred percent back to normal (except I got him back boots and he really struggled with them lol). 

This is what happens when you are
a boob, you get to do 9 minutes of canter
before you start trotting (this is half way
through the ride)

So a good reminder that the horse isn't immune to idiocy. But I'm not upset for a couple of reasons- a) he was so justified in his feelings being probably itchy and frustrated by lack of work and b) it didn't scare me. I could see how in the past it was scary to me, but at this point I just know this horse and I do trust him, especially at home. 

Plus he was back to normal and gave me some great work by the weekend. Good pony!

Lumpy

TC has been great this week! We test rode Monday, he got the day off on Tuesday, and then Wednesday we had a short-ish but good ride. I was a little irked with myself on Wednesday about my sudden inability that day to ride geometry (they put the letters in...). I was eager to continue riding in the court on Thursday and Friday to really buckle down on the geometry. 

 

Skeptical pony thinks that I could just ride better

Buuuuut I got to the barn on Thursday morning to find that TC was... lumpy. I'm not sure where the hives came from, but he had a couple of big ones on the right side of his barrel and then I found some smaller ones on his neck and butt. 

They weren't anywhere near the saddle, so I decided to get on him anyway. But TC let me know that he wasn't really feeling up for a ride by being especially lazy and stopping randomly on our walk. I told him it was fine and we just did a long walk around the ranch before I put him away. 

Luckily Riot had hives recently, so I stopped by the ranch for some meds. He got those on Thursday night (plus some scratches because he's a bit itchy) and will get them again this morning. Fingers crossed they work quickly and he feels better soon! Poor lumpy pony. 

Levels of Pressure

I think I've mentioned a few times on the blog that I'm very slowly reading a book called Academic Horsemanship. I got the book months ago and have been going through it one chapter at a time to try to really soak it all in. It's like a text book, very dense, and has a lot of new ideas for me. So I like to read a chapter, call Kate, tell her I don't know anything about horses or horse training, let the book soak into me for a week or two, then repeat the process with the next chapter. Not so recently, I read chapter 4, which has a section on pressure in it.

This chapter, and especially that section, really led to a lot of realizations on my part about my own riding and training and how I've changed over the last few years with TC.

Setting back against him, I would tighten my curb chain so that
my bottom rein could be tight and not turn the shank horizontal

That loose curb and low hands

I used to be the sort of person who could make any horse lean on me.

Obviously at first I blamed it on the horses. My past trainer's barn was full of horses who leaned because that's how we rode them. But in our opinion, they were horses who didn't respect the bit or horses who needed to *soften* to the bridle, so we ended up bitting up horses (so many inappropriate double bridles) and moving our hands around, and so many of my lessons were aimed at getting me to sit DOWN and engage my core to get me to be able to actually ride these horses that were pulling me out of the tack. I was little and weak so it wasn't a surprise to me that riding involved core and back muscles that I didn't have. Riding wasn't fun a lot of the time, well I mean it was, but only because I didn't know better.

Rico wasn't a heavy horse when I bought him but man was he heavy by the time I had pulled his neck so short that he couldn't be anything but heavy because I was just pulling against his spine (being "stacked up" as Tracey said). I couldn't ride him in anything but a double bridle. My trainer said yes, ride him in that until he respects the snaffle. As if it was a "respect" issue on his part.

Hands up because my biceps were stronger than my triceps

Erm too soft a hand

At some point you have to figure out that it's you, right? Well, I didn't, not for a long time. Because when every trainer told me how lazy and heavy Rico was naturally, when every trainer told me that the way to get a horse round is to "soften" a horse by pulling on it (yeah 'cause that makes sense)... well, you stop questioning things.

Until my current trainer came along, who fixed us, I wasn't at all bothered by his heaviness, nor any other horse's heaviness. You kind of get immune to it, get used to riding like that so horses get used to your aids shouting at them and quickly habituate to them. That's what would happen on every horse I rode- the horses would habituate to my aids and while I may enjoy a horse being soft for a few rides, I would eventually make them lean on me. Sometimes my shoulders would hurt and I'd just pick another fight with him and look up different bits on the internet, put him in illegal bits and draw reins and whatever else I could find. But mostly I just ignored it. I mean we were doing Fourth level, we were obviously good at dressage.

Current trainer took us back to the basics and got us to a place that I didn't think existed in the bridle. Rico became so much lighter and better connected. Still though, my hard aids were there in the form of my leg aids, but at least my rotator cuffs stopped hurting. My final trainer before my gold was the one who really addressed the leg aids. And in the final months of riding Rico, he was where TC is today in terms of lightness, and dressage was FUN. And I realized that all the years I thought it was fun had kind of been a lie.

It may look fancy but I'm leaning against the bridle

Sitting upright with soft elbows

After learning the hard way and seeing the light, I really didn't want TC to be heavy to the aids in any way. I didn't want to have to nag him to go forward and I was under no circumstance going to have him lean on me. TC started out being a little tricky this way. He was slow off my leg and fluctuated between either being so light in the bridle he wouldn't connect at all, or getting rigid on the contact.

The nagging leg was the easiest thing to eliminate since it had been something I worked on every day with Rico. It was also just an easier aid for TC to understand, a horse who was barely started can understand leg = go a lot easier than the entire concepts of roundness and connection. And TC is for sure a "less is more" kind of horse. The lighter the aids, the more responsive he gets.

But the connection was still so hard for me. It was really hard to eliminate those old "the horse must soften to the rider" thoughts from my brain. And it lasted quite a long time, I wrote about TC's rigidity in this blog for several years. I don't think I've mentioned rigidity recently.

I figured it out over time and now TC is just dreamy in the connection. It's no longer my first instinct to put a backward pressure on the reins to get him on the bit, though I do find myself going to that place when we're struggling with new movements (hence taking my time to put them on slowly) and when he bolts, which I feel like is quite a good reason to pull backwards on the reins!

Soft, too soft actually lol

I didn't really connect all of these things together until reading this book and the section on pressure. It put into the light my journey, a journey that was mostly self serving (do not want to be leaned on, do not want to ride a lazy horse) at the time, but now I can really see the large overall effect it is having and will have on my horses and riding ability.

The section on pressure includes a scale from zero to ten in terms of the amount of pressure on any aid. A pressure level of zero is no pressure at all- a loose rein and legs that are physically off the horse. A pressure level of one is the level of pressure you want your horse to habituate to. A leg resting against the horse. The rider carrying perhaps just the physical weight of the reins to maintain contact with the horse. From pressure level two to four is a light aid. A touch of the leg, a slightly tension in the reins. And anything above a level four is considered a strong aid. I think of a ten is the STRONGEST aid you can possibly put on a horse given the bit/spurs you have. And honestly, as someone who isn't that physically strong of a person, that's a pretty narrow scale. A four is pretty light.

Strong pressure, the author writes, should be used VERY sparingly (only when unavoidable) and desirably behaviors resulting from strong pressure should be IMMEDIATELY trained to go off of light pressure.

"Constant strong pressure is very damaging for the horse's health and wellbeing."

And this is where I have to publicly apologize to Rico, again, who has neck arthritis because I thought that he was lazy and heavy and that pulling on his face was a good way to soften him. I seriously had a moment reading this... I simultaneously wanted to chuck the book out the window and roll my eyes at it and also put my head down and cry because while I was sure that if Rico hadn't been a performance horse, he wouldn't have neck arthritis (because it's overwhelmingly common), I couldn't help but to read that line and think that I was certainly the cause of it.

But I can't go back in time, and Rico is living an amazing retirement because of me, so I'm not all bad. So press forward, I must to learn more, and next time I see him, he's getting a hug and some carrots.

It's just so much lighter looking

Back to strong pressure. The author not only cites the horse's health and well-being as a potential problem with strong pressure, they also cite that a horse may become dangerous with too much strong pressure.

Many horses will simply shut down, slow down, lean more on you, like Rico did. I feel both lucky and frustrated that TC will not do this. If there is too much pressure on TC, he reacts in a way that could lead to a dangerous behavior if I continued. For example, he tolerates the whip just fine, until it crosses a line, and then he kicks at it and then bucks, then more and more bucking. He tolerates pressure in the hand to a point, then he either starts to balk and rear or he'll bolt to get through it. He tolerates pressure (tension) from the seat to a point, then he bolts.

Rico did the same thing, though was labeled a problem horse when he did it. He got put in training until he "learned better" and "respected" me aka until he learned that he couldn't do anything about those pressures. Right around then the spark was lost until I took the pressure off. There's a reason why I scored so much better at 4th and Prix St George than at Second and Third. He became alive again in those higher levels when I rode lighter. There was only so much pressure I could apply to him in the show ring to get him to be more uphill and more active when I was already putting so much pressure on him. Take the pressure off, teach him to be light to the aids, and

I won't do that to TC. I don't have the guts to ride him out until he learns that bad behavior won't get him out of unfair pressure, nor do I want him to learn that. Horses are fair. They are not manipulative. And he is becoming more and more expressive as I give him the room to learn and to have some say in how his training is going. Strong pressure is something he has to experience sometimes, but not often, and when it happens, it's not prolonged. I immediately work to take the pressure off.

Much better muscle now that he's carrying himself too

The author emphasizes that training the horse to be lighter is all about the release of the aids. Which is like... duh, right? But it's so easy to forget to do. Maybe the rider forgets the release going from one movement to the next, maybe the rider forgets the release because they didn't really have a good idea of what they wanted anyway, maybe the rider forgets the release because releasing means the horse "takes advantage" of the rider being soft. Or my favorite, the horse needs to "give" first before the rider releases.

I love this, but it's so easy to forget

With TC, everything always goes back to lightness, it always goes back to a release of the aid. Getting him to respond to the lightest aids (sometimes by use of a louder aid for an instant) then releasing. For a horse who can be ridden very heavily from the leg (nagging) and rein (shortening his neck), and a horse who can be a little intolerant to being ridden this way (nagging leads to balking leads to rearing, getting his neck too short can cause him to run off because he wants to break through the pressure), this has been really key in his training- to get him to understand the aids that I'm applying and to respond to them. Because I just simply can't MAKE this horse in the same way I was able to MAKE Rico do things.

So as I've trained movements, it's always back to lightness. And it's been working so well. He is not a physical ride in the least (except sitting that trot, damn), he doesn't hurt my shoulders, he doesn't put me out of breath, it's just light and fluffy a lot of the time. And the times when it isn't light and fluffy, we're both working hard to get it light and fluffy. Me with the timing of my release, him with the self carriage and activity behind.


I'm really glad that Tracey came into my life at the right time to teach me about connection. And I'm really glad that Heidi was there to get me addicted to the feeling of a horse in front of the leg (even if that's real intimidating with Mr Giant Gaits over here). And I'm really glad that I bought this dense book from Australia to help me fully understand HOW these things work.

Test Riding at First Level

Sunday afternoon and Monday morning I decided to test ride all the First level tests in the court with the new footing! As I said, I had been low key avoiding the court because it was getting a little hard in there, but my barn is awesome and pretty quickly put in the new footing and it is the fluffiest thing ever. Note to TC, if you ever go to buck me off (please don't), do it in there.

The letters hadn't been put up yet, so I sort of had to wing it. Because of that, I really can't tell how my geometry really was. So it could be that the tests weren't as clean as they felt, oh well.

I have a few new pictures but they're still on my phone, oh well

First Level Test 1

The centerline needs work, just because we haven't ridden a test since our last show about three weeks ago. He's also not allowed to take walk steps in or out of the halt anymore at First, so we need to be a little sharper.

The half 10m circles felt okay, but he's still just not comfortable on that small of a figure so he stutters on and off of them. I find that hilarious because later on, I'll tell you that I accidentally have been riding my 15m circles too small and he rode 10-12m canter circles super easily. You do you, TC.

The stretch circle was good, though kind of annoying to have it before a lengthening. He did pick himself up for that and showed me his good lengthening. He's just GETTING those now, and now that he understands what it means, I can start adjusting it to get more lift and more engagement so we can turn that into a medium stat.

The walk work was okay except he was REAL distracted. He can be distracted going into a stretch circle and ride it just fine but he's not convinced the free walk is a real movement. He just thinks it's a free break in the middle of a test. No.

The canter work all rode great. The lengthening to the left was powerful, but he came RIGHT back to me on the circle that I rode too small. The downward was good, and I stayed sitting to the next upward, which rode well too. That one is tricky because it's right in front of the judge. The lengthening to the right is a little harder because he just gets a little on his outside shoulder and swings his haunches in. But the circle rode just fine.

I generally thought the whole test felt really good. It feels easy for him, but I do want to clean it up a bit. The lengthenings could be bigger with clearer transitions. The free walk could be less wandering and be a bit more marching, but that's a big long work in progress with this horse who sometimes feels like he was born to mosey around on the trail.

We both love to mosey

First Level Test 2

I pretty much immediately rode First 2, just a short walk break in between. Once again the lengthenings felt pretty great. The leg yields were new though, and those felt AWESOME. The leg yield right is a lot better than the leg yield left, but they're so shallow that it's not a big deal. TC was great about waiting on centerline for the leg yield to begin, and his first step was perfect in each direction- not haunches leading or crooked.

The walk work was much the same, still a little distracted and slow in the free walk. He was great in the free walk to medium walk to trot to canter again. After riding both the lengthening to circle and circle to lengthening, I surprisingly liked the First 2 pattern better- circle to lengthening. I always thought the lengthening to circle would be better for him, and it may be so in the show ring when he gets behind my leg, but the horse is totally understanding the whoa after the lengthening, so I don't feel like I need the circle.

The trot change (which is just trot at x, canter and f, not an actual change yet) felt good, I was able to sit the whole thing and that set us up well for the next transition.

All in all, it was again a really clean, fun test. I think the only thing I'd want to change for the show ring is a little more throughness in the canter transitions (still so much better than they used to be) and a little more oomph in the leg yields.

Can't wait to show this guy again

First Level Test 3

The centerline rode better in this test, I think because I rode this test on Monday so we had a day to think about it. TC is struggling a little bit with his halts, thinking that I always mean reinback, so that was tricky.

Because he was a little tired, I only rode the lengthenings about fifty percent, but the first one rode well on the long diagonal. I transitioned to sitting trot after that lengthening. Just based on the trot work in this test, it really should be done sitting other than maybe the lengthenings. So I made myself sit, and it was fine.

The leg yields are tough. Though I do like that the first one is the easy one for us- leg yield right. I rode it a little steeper than necessary so that I could get him to the centerline before X and even start the leg yield left before then too. The leg yield left was not as easy, and while it was correct in that it was straight and on the aids, it lost the expression in his trot. So we need to work on that, the trot shouldn't slow down in the lateral work.

The stretch circle rode well, so that was good. The ten meter circles also rode surprisingly well, since I really haven't been schooling figures that small at the trot for very long. The halt was rough, of course, and getting him immediately back into the trot that I wanted was tricky too.

I was again really pleased with his ability to go from free walk to cantering in a matter of twenty meters in all these tests. He was great starting a fifteen meter circle immediately too.

I was AMAZED by the canter work in general. First, he's so much fitter now because in the past I've been really intimidated by the length of the canter work in the test for him. Second, it was just easy. He's really understanding the shortening after his lengthenings. He's easily riding the fifteen meter circles. The counter canter loops are beyond easy. The simple change through the trot could be better. It's not as through as it could be- it's straight and clean, just a little against me in the upward for some reason.

Generally I was SO IMPRESSED with this animal in this test. I mean the others rode super easy, but I didn't think we'd even be able to school this test by the end of the year, let alone be riding it and having it be pretty much clean (unclean halt is fine, very fixable).

Canter work needs to get better in the show ring ugh

I don't know how we'll be in the show ring for these tests, and I'm going to be trying to get him off the property more, especially to places with courts where I can ride tests, but for now, I'm really happy! He tries so hard in the work and it's super fun to see how he's coming along.

Next step, cleaning up the simple changes so we can try 2-1! It's our only missing piece from Second at this point. And they're there, they're just not where I want them to be. Rule number one of changes is don't practice crappy changes. So we'll be working on the pieces of them for a while until we can ride good ones.

Used Tack Sale and Why TC is a "Misery to Train"

This last Sunday was another awesome used tack sale! My mom heard about the last one and really wanted to go to this one, so I invited her along. It ended up being a really fun day with her!

We talked about Sunny, and she's been having some nerves with him. He's not doing anything wrong, but she's still getting used to him and he's a different sort of horse than she's used to. He's smaller so he feels like he's going faster than he is, and she's unnecessarily worried about tipping him off balance. So she wanted to come to the tack sale to try to find an English saddle. She doesn't like putting the western saddle on (which is heavy and lives in the trailer for trail rides) for arena work and I had told her about some balancing exercises she could do in the English saddle.

We stopped to get tea and sandwiches and then we were off! The tack sale was awesome. We got a couple of western saddle pads for Sunny that were five dollars each. We found an older Wintec to buy that fit my mom really well and would fit Sunny well (that same day in the morning, a family friend lent my mom a wintec isabel dressage saddle that fit Sunny really well).

Remember him? I have no new pictures of him

I found some obnoxious mint green polo wraps that I'm super excited about. I also found a saddle pad, it's just plain and old, but TC has been sweating through his pads lately (wet saddle pads = schooling Second level, right?) and is just generally a pretty dirty horse despite me giving him baths whenever I can, so I go through a lot of them. The jackpot, however, was in the books this time. I found FOUR books to buy.

One was by the clicker trainer that Kate had out in July at her barn. I couldn't go audit the clinic because I was in Michigan, but after seeing how some of her horses have changed with the training, I decided to at least buy the book. It was a dollar, so why not?

The next was Basic Training of the Young Horse by Ingrid and Reiner Klimke. I think TC is beyond basic training at this point, but I couldn't not buy a Reiner Klimke book. Plus it might help me fill in any gaps with TC that I forgot. It was five dollars so why not?

The third was Cross Training Your Horse by Jane Savoie. I think it's more for other riders to use dressage to cross train their horses, but hey, free exercises. And it was again five dollars so why not?

Maybe not in need of basic training? Though we always need
basic training. Also I need new media stat. 

The fourth why not? book I got was a weird one. It was a dollar. So I was pretty sold on it. It was written in the early 50s on dressage by someone who turns out to be rather judgmental. I get that dressage was very different back then, but so far the only chapter I read was this one in the back about what to look for in a dressage horse and I'm a little insulted because it sounds like he would hate my horse.

Some quotes:

Feet to be well shaped, open, with a good frog. Boxy feet condemn the horse. So do big and clumsy feet.

Oh... but what if his giant feet are kind of adorable in a platypus type way?

If the quarters are short, the angle between the hip-bone (ilium) and thigh (femur) will be too small and the angle at the stifle joint between thigh and tibia is likely to be similarly affected. By that formation, the development of a good swinging gallop stride is impeded. 

My horse can gallop just fine with his tiny butt, thank you.

Too short a back is a disadvantage, because it makes it even more difficult than it always is to obtain lateral flexibility of the spinal column. 

I mean he can go REAL fast and REAL sideways when he wants.

A roach-backed horse should be rejected; it is a misery to try and train them. 

TC has a bit of a roach in his back and he is not a misery to train!

The neck should be long and fine and its natural elevation at an angle of 45 degrees. 

Oh... his neck is short and thick and definitely high on his shoulders. Which the author did say only "may" lead to problems arriving in a "correctly bridled position" which I do agree with I guess.

It will be understood that horses with short, heavy, thick necks will never go far in dressage. 

Get out.

The essence of dressage is the search for light and elegant movement. It cannot be expected from the heavy built, broad-chested horse. 

Boo! Though TC isn't very broad actually.

My short necked, roach-backed, giant hoofed, thick, ugly horse

The author goes on to say that the best sort of horse for dressage is one with a hot temperament. He says that this horse is generous and courageous, but requires a "sympathetic and understanding rider, for whom they will go like a lamb."

My favorite quote follows though:

Hot, in the context in which it is here used, does not mean gassy, scatter-brained, or temperamental.

Lol I think the word gassy was once used in a different way.  Back to insulting TC, we have this one-

I would similarly reject any horse given to habitual shying, a defect frequently due to poor sight. 

I'm pretty sure TC sees more than all of us.


Obviously I'm not taking any of this too seriously. It's so clear though, based on this book, how much dressage has really changed in the last 60 years! And that was just reading one silly chapter on how to pick a dressage horse, not even looking at how he prefers to train them. I'm curious to see what the rest of the book sounds like. I love the older writing style and think that at the very least, it will be really entertaining to read.

Even if the author hates my horse and thinks he would be a misery to train.

A Good Weekend Ride

Despite being sick, this weekend ended up being a good weekend for horses. I hate having to take it easy, but I did enjoy a nice (forced) relaxing (kinda boring) Saturday morning before going out to the barn.

I've been basically washing TC's tail a LOT lately. It's just a lot of damn tail. Every time I think I've got it totally clean, I brush it and find more dirt hiding in it. Wtf TC. It is looking whiter though! I don't think I'm ever going to have the guts to bleach it, but I've been pouring whitening shampoo on it and it's looking better! I think the best thing for it is maybe uh TC not rolling in the dirt all the fucking time.

What I'll do is start editing his tail in pictures...

I actually managed to do all of our canter work after we warmed up. I haven't been able to actually ride for long enough to canter (or trot) enough in the last week due to me being unable to breathe properly. The canter felt great though. We started with some smaller circles, which actually seemed to help the quality of the canter for the first time.

From there I schooled the counter canter in easy patterns given the arena size- the loop from 1-3 to start, then going to the other quarterline, then going all the way to create the serpentine from 2-3. I really like that progression for him, I'm for sure going to be doing that in the court soon (footing is in and court will hopefully be up soon!). The counter canter felt really good- there's just one moment tracking the harder way (right lead to the left for now) where he felt like he needed a little help at the turn back the original direction.

After our counter canter work, we rode a ten meter circle and I got a really good downward transition, which reminded me of an exercise I had told Kate about for simple changes (that's literally the exercise- ten meter circles to school the downwards). I haven't really schooled the simple changes very much with TC. But I figured it was high time to start at least playing with them.

Starting to want to show again!

So after a walk break where he got told how wonderful his counter canter is, I picked up the walk and worked to get him stepping further under in preparation for the canter.

I started him on half steps a few rides ago. I'm not looking for very much with them, just asking him to sit into a small trot when I bring both legs back and then stopping when I tell him to stop. Mostly I just want to make sure that he doesn't get tense and that he thinks doing that is fun.

The walk to canter is coming along, though he still unloads his hind end while doing it. It's really common for horses in the beginning. They sort of learn to push themselves into canter and end up picking up something a little less collected than they should. As time goes on, he'll learn to sit into the transition, and eventually have one or two steps of very collected canter before I push him forward into the regular collected canter.

But he's at the stage now where I'm blocking him from cantering when he goes to come off the bit into it, so he's figuring out staying round in the transition. So that's super cool! Sometimes he shuffles into it, sometimes he can't figure out the lead, but they're generally coming along well. Especially for a movement that I haven't really schooled very much. We had some really good ones in both directions, with the left of course being harder than the right. He was more likely to skip out sideways or go to pick up the wrong lead in that direction. It miiight have been something to do with me not being willing to sit on my right seatbone though... maybe.

The downwards were okay too. I haven't been schooling them much because they've been a bit bad, but I really took it upon myself on Saturday to set them up better with a small circle. They were hit or miss in terms of trot steps, but every transition was balanced, and that was huge. He got lots of pets for each one and gave me at least one in each direction where it was clean and balanced. Good pony! I always try to make him feel like a complete genius even when he sort of kind of gets it. Try to get the pony to think that the hard stuff is more fun than the easy stuff.

I love him so much, such a good pony

We had some really great trot work after that. The canter gets him a bit more up and through at the trot, which is super awesome. I kept the trot really easy for him, just schooled the shoulder-in and the lengthenings.

Since the Jeremy clinic a month ago, the shoulder-in is AWESOME. I mean the right shoulder-in has been awesome for a while. But the left shoulder-in at the clinic felt hollow and crooked. Now it feels the same as the right, sometimes better. He likes to toss his haunches to the right in general, so I'm able to keep my outside leg on him better tracking left than right in the shoulder-in, which gets me a better quality of bend. Instead of the bend coming from me poking his inside hind leg under, it's coming from me truly bringing his shoulders in front of his inside hind leg and wrapping the haunches around my inside leg. You know, like it should be. It was so hard for him in the beginning, I kind of had to fudge the shoulder-in to put it on.

The lengthenings were so good on Saturday too. Like so good. There's no way I'm ever going to sit them. But so good.

He's still a little baroque in them, not really reaching forward with his front legs as much as he should and getting slightly out behind, but one thing I can really say is that he is NOT quickening his hind legs. At all. He really slows the tempo in it and that's so cool. We rode just a few of them, the first one taking note of a couple of things I wanted to address, then the next couple of them being better uphill and a bit more together. Still have a little bit before they start feeling like true mediums, but the last one made me stop him and tell him he was the best pony.

Because he is the best pony

After that I basically couldn't breathe at all, so I coughed for a long while and then wandered around the ranch a bit, talking to some barn people. Afterward, I washed his tail again with blue shampoo and bathed the rest of him while I waited for that to soak in.

As an aside, if anyone has any good products to try in his tail to get it whiter, let me know. I don't think I'm quite ready to go the bleach route, or anything that could potentially ruin his tail if someone incompetent (me) did it, but I'm open to ideas!

All in all, a really great day at the barn!

Steady Progress

The last couple weeks have been really good for TC and I. Pretty much every ride is a good one, even if they occasionally have young horse moments (like when a flock of birds took off from the roof of the covered arena and he was like ME TOO LET'S GO). He's becoming a super reliable, fun horse to have around. I get excited about riding him and it feels like every ride we just get a little bit better. 

Even this week when I've been sick with the death cold has been good. Yesterday I was feeling particularly bad so I just rode him bareback around the property mostly on a loose rein. The other day I got done cantering, didn't realize I had been breathing so shallowly for so long, so I basically collapsed into his neck and coughed for a while. He just stood there casually looking at a cat until I was done and went right back to work like nothing was wrong. 

He's not taking things as personally now, he's not as nervous or anxious about his work or his environment. I don't feel like I have to be as careful with him. He's just settling into his life. It's almost like the last couple years he went through his teenage angst phase and now we're on the other side and I have a young adult who may party a little too hard sometimes (like when he still goes to buck and run sideways in his once problem corner every now and then) but is generally a solid citizen. 

Since I have no other media, here is a few pictures from TC's
like... second or third schooling show when he was 4- over two
years ago!

The work itself has been really good too. The level of throughness he's been bringing to our rides has been great. The connection feels really reliable and steady. And I've been perpetually working on getting him a little sharper off of my leg. It's not that he's behind my leg, but he's still working at a lower level of responsiveness than I want. That coupled with knowing that in the show ring, we get ourselves all tangled up behind my leg makes it really important to work on.

This has been especially important in the walk, even though the canter is what is causing problems in the show ring. The walk work is correct, just it looks like someone slowed it down. I want him to march a little bit more, and he finds this hard. He also finds it hard to shorten the step while maintaining activity and setting back on his hocks at the same time, something that will be really important in the walk pirouettes. He's doing turns on the haunches now, which have so far been biomechanically correct, though again, slow. So I get a little worried that he'll learn to stick. We've been doing a lot of half or quarter turns, then walking forward out of them, picking up a trot, then walking and riding them again. Keep him on his toes. 

What actually was this color? Also PHEW I thought his tail was
looking more yellow than it used to but it does not. Still not totally
silver but we're getting there, purple shampoo ftw

The canter feels like a totally different canter than before and I really want video to see if I'm correct or just delusional. It used to feel like I had to keep a certain amount of tension (more than just tone) in my body, especially my seat/hip, to keep him cantering in the first place. I think it had to do with him having to have a little tension under and a little behind the saddle TO canter in the first place. Now I'm feeling like that tension is going away. 

And without the tension, the throughness is FINALLY happening. He hasn't been like... off the bit at the canter, but he hasn't really been fully through yet. I think with the emphasis on the canter for the last couple of months, he's really figuring out how to utilize his whole body in the gait. It's making the canter feel a lot less fragile and a lot more rideable. This is especially noticeable in his sudden ability to canter on small circles and his ability to counter canter. 

For a while cantering on small circles just wasn't possible, he really struggled to bend at the canter while on the smaller figures due to the tension in his back. So instead of bending he'd just fall out with his haunches or break. Now, he's learning to flex his pelvis and support himself with his hind legs AND turn his shoulders around on the circle without pivoting through the middle. The counter canter isn't yet where I want it for Second or anything, but he's maintaining the throughness and staying quite rideable in it. I no longer worry about him breaking or swapping, and the quality of canter is sometimes better in the counter canter than the true canter, which is excellent. 

I can't believe how much both of us have changed

Despite not being able to actually sit the trot in like a week because I've been sick, I have been working on it. I'm still working on creating a trot that is easy to sit. It feels really hit or miss every day. Like some days we're good and I can sit it all day long. Other days I get half way through our work and it's just too much to sit. I don't know if it's me, since I do have back problems, or him, since he can definitely be a little different day to day in terms of how much tone he wants to bring to the equation. Tracey calls it "going friesian" when he loses tone, and that's when he gets a little tough to sit. So we've been working on putting a bit more oomph into the trot without losing him mentally. 

And that's been really helpful for the outline too. He is starting to really look like a First/moving toward Second level horse in the trot. Poll the highest point, stepping further under himself, even taking more weight behind here and there when I can convince him to. 

Because of this, all of the trot work has been super easy lately. The shoulder-in and leg yields are show ready, the haunches-in is at the very least a thing we do, and sometimes it feels surprisingly great, especially tracking right. The half pass is coming along too, again better in the half pass right than left. 

He used to be so... flat lol and small, I looked so much bigger on
him than I do now. And I haven't gotten smaller. 

So yeah, everything is going well. Except I can't really breathe. And I can't stop coughing, which at least is making my abs hurt like I did seven hours of pilates straight. So I guess that's a good thing! This weekend we're going to have to take it easy, which is too bad because I had really wanted a lesson. Hopefully next weekend when I'm feeling a little better.