Change is Hard on Everyone

This week TC was hit or miss in my rides after work. He's generally better when he gets eurocized earlier in the day, has Spot nearby, and when nothing weird happens. Unfortunately on Tuesday night, a horse left TC in the cross ties and he couldn't settle himself down. I got on and we had a mostly uneventful walk until we went into the outdoor arena to try to work. My BO was riding out in a field that TC has never seen people ride in before, so he got pretty upset about that. But generally things were going okay until BO wandered through our arena on her walk. TC went leaping through the air and was generally a tense mess of an animal. 

The only saving grace of the ride is that I was annoyed with him, so I pushed him to do half pass in order to keep him with me. Sometimes I can get him back to me if I start asking him for harder stuff, and it generally worked. I managed to get a good zig zag out of him too, which is the highest level movement he's now schooled, it being something that pops up in Fourth level. It made me feel better at least, to play with that. He's obviously nowhere near Fourth, but it's like he's slowly turning into a real dressage horse! Even if he wasn't able to canter in a straight line on Tuesday.

Slowly getting to the point where we can
wander around a bit

He got Wednesday off so I could go to trivia with Andy and Peony (yay) and then yesterday Nicole came out to meet him and he wasn't bad to ride, but he was still quite tense. Things did get better at the end when I was able to put him in shoulder-in and really push him over the ground, so that's good. Then today I have off so I'll be riding him during the day, which has also been hit or miss given that it's a lot busier/more distracting at the barn during the day. 

I think we need to go back to some clicker training work to help get his brain in gear. I'm also hoping to find a store that sells magnesium because I might toss him on that again to see if he calms down. Could be that the hay has different minerals in it and he's starting to get deficient. Might grab something for his stomach too because of the stress. 

Please settle in asap, pony

It's not to say that TC is the only crazy animal in my life. Jade, my sweet kitty, has settled right in and has a lot of pent up energy from being nervous and quiet for a few days. She is now a really adorable terrorist. I've woken up several times to her leaping onto and/or over me. All she wants is to go in my closet where my clothes are and will sit and wale next to it until I open it, where then she takes off somewhere else. She's also been using my yoga mat (which is now out all the time since I hung up my TRX straps to use every day) as a scratcher despite having MANY APPROPRIATE THINGS to scratch on. So I'm going to be looking into a carpet or something to put under the straps. 

I'm also a bit nuts (yay anxiety disorder in overdrive due to moving). I've been very convinced that TC is lame/going to go lame/colicking/going to colic. His leg has been a little puffy occasionally, which if he were back at his old barn, I would have been able to explain by it being warmer, him walking around less, or something like that. 

At the new barn, it's obviously the footing/him being sick so he isn't walking around enough/him running around in his paddock/his paddock being smaller so he isn't moving around enough/him being a terrorist in his walker/him possibly ditching the guy who takes him to and from the walker to gallop around the fields and no one telling me. I'm also sure that the very slight change in weather (literally it's just as warm where he was this weekend) is going to cause him to colic. Or maybe the change of food. Also that he doesn't like his grass hay as much so he's losing weight (he's not). And that without mirrors I've now destroyed him undersaddle and have no way of knowing it (I haven't). 

Remember when his leg looked like this
and I didn't freak out about it? Now it looks
totally normal and I'm freaking out about it.

Everything else has been fine, work has been good and I feel like I've been able to walk in and immediately be able to not be a drain on the team, which is new for me in a job. It's mostly because I've switched fields every time I've switched jobs up until this point. My apartment is coming together nicely (but slowly, I really need a whole day to dedicate to it but that's not going to happen any time soon) and I'm enjoying having more time after work to hang out there. 

I do miss being closer to Rico and my parents' dogs, as well as to my family and friends in the bay, but Peony has been the best at making me feel welcomed and I'm going back down to the bay for various things (including a show this weekend that Kate is riding in!). Plus my sister in law is coming to visit me this weekend and I'm hanging out with my favorite former coworker today I think, also auditing a clinic at Nicole's barn and hanging out with Penoy too! 

Also let's not talk about how often I've let myself go get boba since I moved because I feel sorry for myself having to adapt to change. It's been excessive. But that's okay. 

WW: Showing Stretch

I ran across some more old pictures! This is Stretch and I showing in 2001 or 2002. We showed in the jumpers and equitation at B circuit shows (and I think 1-2 A circuit shows but I haven't found those pictures) and in a few schooling shows too.

Jumpers at Santa Rosa

Jumpers at Santa Rosa

Me falling off (or not?? how does gravity work again) in the
jumpers at Santa Rosa. Stretch is just like whyyyyy. 

Equitation at Almaden

Equitation at Almaden

That fall we did the halloween horse show (schooling show) at the local barn.

Loping over this tiny jump

Stretch was so cute over fences

We even did the dollar bareback class! He was super smooth.

Got My Horse Back

After our first ride going okayyy on Thursday, I came out Friday determined to have a better ride. And we didn't. It was the busiest time of the day and TC hadn't been eurocized yet, so he was an absolute nutball. Lots of bucking and leaping, a couple even getting me close to being unseated. Ugh.

Hello throughness at the canter, please never go away!

Saturday I moved all my stuff and delayed going to the barn. It took Peony saying she was coming out for me to finally get my ass down there to ride. The barn was quiet and although it was really windy, it wasn't too cold. I walked TC over to where Spot was and Peony and I grazed the horses for a few minutes. Then I took him back into the scary cross tie area to tack him up. He was still on edge, but he had moments of relaxation. I realized that since our ride on Friday, he'd had two eurocizer sessions, each 40 minutes long. I told the BO that I didn't care how long he was on it, he was fit and it's just walking.

It did a pony REAL good though. He was totally quiet that day. Like, completely and utterly back to normal. Better than normal, way way too quiet.

Peony caught this picture, look at that tail!

Sunday was even better! Spot is really the best TC-sitter in that she is absolutely unimpressed with him. He really really wants her to be his BEST FRIEND to add to his collection (so far his neighbor and any horse who gets put in the cross ties next to him are his horse best friends) but Spot would rather TC stay the fuck away from her. But she was an excellent lead when we went out toward the cross country field on the pathway that leads around the outdoor arena.

The facility has both a covered arena and an outdoor arena. I thought I'd be spending a lot of time in the covered since it typically has very few jumps and is the size of a dressage court. But Sunday we opted to ride outside and I really enjoyed it. Not only was TC totally amazing out there, it was kind of fun to ride around the jumps and have more space to move around. I also, so far, like the footing out there a lot more.

Quietly (too quietly) cantering along on Sunday

TC and I have been playing with the lateral work a lot since moving, it's helping him stay loose in his back and better through when he's feeling a bit tense, and it's one of the big issues we're going to have moving up the levels. It took him a solid year to get a trot leg yield that wasn't shuffling, and we're finally past that point in the shoulder-in, but the haunches-in and half passes are still tricky for him. He really needs to slow down to keep the balance and angle required for the movement.

We're also continuing the work with the walk pirouettes, though those have been much harder to school with no mirrors.  I think I need to stick my phone on the rail and get some video of that to just make sure that I haven't totally fucked them right up.

The canter felt really quiet this weekend, which was both a blessing and a curse. I was so happy that he was feeling relaxed and happy to flop along in the canter, and it made getting him through a lot easier since he was all about getting into the contact to have me help him balance back a bit. But being quiet means that he doesn't really sit very much. I decided to let him plod a bit and traded the uphill balance for the relaxation. There's plenty of time to get him rocked back, but if I don't let him flop along sometimes, I'll never be able to keep him through his back!

Eating grass while watching horses jump, best time ever

I was so happy to have my horse back over the weekend. I think eurocizing does a pony good. Monday he was back to being a little tiny bit tense, and I was pretty convinced he was lame (he wasn't, shocker) so we just did some light work out in the outdoor. With the wind, he never truly settled down as much as he did over the weekend, but because of that, I got some really stellar canter work out of him in comparison. It's always a balance!

I'm really looking forward to riding him this week (as long as he's sound, because you know, he's about to go lame 24/7). I think he'll continue getting better and better, and as the ground hardens up out on the cross country course, we'll be out there in no time hacking around and hopefully fitting in some field dressage. And conditioning, I'm going to be ramping up his fitness soon, he's going to be a real live First level horse this year so he's got to get a little fitter for that 1-3 test!

Step Back in Time

Today is my first day at the new job and I wanted to take the time to post about what I did in the week between jobs. Obviously there was moving involved, but during the rest of it, I taught a bunch of lessons for Kate! I've taught some lessons since starting office life, but I haven't really done it every day for several days without working in the office. Instead of going over the lessons, which were all super fun, I thought I'd talk about the differences between the jobs and why my cushy office life has made me ill equipped for being a full time horse trainer.

Sunset on the pony

1) Time
Once I'm at work, I'm at work. At my last job, it took me 10 minutes max to get anywhere on campus, and my little calendar alarm would go off 10 minutes before any meeting I had to be at. I'd click on the meeting link, see where it was, and walk over there. It was really easy to tell someone "hey it's 1:45 and I have a 2:00, I'll be back at 3:15, why don't we continue then?" if someone was distracting me. Only rarely was I the one actually leading the meeting, mostly because I was an analyst, not in charge of anything. I didn't have to keep track of time.

For teaching, I had to depend on other people on the roads to keep me on time. Accident on the road? I'm late. Traffic backing up? I'm late. Or, if I accounted for those things and they didn't happen, I'm way early. I also had to keep track of time once I was teaching! And that was tricky sometimes since some kids make the time go by super fast and others don't.

New boss is so nice!

2) Weather
It doesn't rain on me in the office. Just saying.


3) Scheduling
For the most part, all of my meetings were in the same place and everyone I was meeting with was predictably there for 40 hours a week. With students, they all have their own schedules. Frequently I forgot that children attend school when we talked about shifting a lesson. Oops.

Gotta do that mane soon

4) Being clean
I can't tell you how excited I am to be really clean today. When I'm teaching I still shower, but then I go to work and the dirt piles on again. At work, it's frowned upon to be covered in dirt and disgusting. Also, my coworkers, or, at least my previous coworkers, wouldn't frequently sneeze on me or rub their nasty faces on me. None of them farted in my face and I didn't step in any poop on a regular basis. We'll see how these new coworkers are though.


5) So. Tired.
Normally at work I get a lot of sitting time. I also get a lot of silence. I can sit and listen all day long if I want to. By the second day of teaching, my throat was sore and I was physically completely exhausted from standing around and talking all day. I think the kids had to hear at least 5x each that I was super tired and wasn't used to this. That plus moving all my shit around has made me VERY excited to sit today. I'm real good at sitting.

Decor on point

But honestly, as much as I'm excited to get back to research, I'm so so so grateful that Kate let me come torment her kids all week. They're SUCH great students and I had so much fun teaching them. I'm really sad to be so far away but I'm sure I'll be back to visit soon enough!

That Time I Moved TC to a Horse Torture Factory

TC has been at his new barn for maybe 48 hours and has complained about being there what seems like ten thousand times.

Luckily, he settled in well to his stall on Wednesday. I a bit just dumped him in there, put up twine so he thought that there was electric wire over the pipe panel at the back of his paddock, and went to unload the trailer. He's not smart enough to know that the twine isn't electric wire within 24 hours. He's a cautious fellow.

Like how he wouldn't come in here for a while,
might be where they torture the horses

I somehow got all of my tack room contents to fit into a much smaller tack locker, though it's a little bit stuffed to the brim and it's bugging me A LOT. I, like TC, and consider this foreshadowing, hate change. I think a lot of it is the feeling of being disorganized and not knowing where things are or what my routine is. So I kept getting annoyed at the tack locker. BUT I will be able to keep stuff in my apartment, so I will be thinking up ways to re-organize it and transfer things into my closet here. The guy who is essentially the barn manager said that if I wanted to change it up, I could just let him know what I wanted changed, which is amazing! I still need ideas though, I might ask you all for suggestions.

After moving all the boxes out of both my car and the trailer into my apartment, I went down to the barn to meet Peony. I didn't want to ride TC because it was getting late, he needed a day off anyway, and it was going to start being sunny starting on Thursday afternoon. No point in riding in the storm in a new place on a horse who hates rain and new places.

TC got some grain and a carrot before we were off to dinner!

Cautiously walking around the arena where they
probably torture horses

Thursday morning I had orientation and was woefully unprepared. Even though they had told me what to bring, the move had totally made me forget absolutely everything I was supposed to bring. I didn't even have a check for direct deposit. Oh well. I did manage to find out that my health insurance is going to be pretty awesome and that I get a day off a week from today! And everyone seemed really nice. I wanted to stop in and find my new boss, but I also wanted to get boba, groceries, and ride my horse.

Boba was good, groceries were also good, and so I got back home and tried to organize more things before getting frustrated that my life was in disarray and walking out to the barn. TC was beside himself that I was there (please let him never find out that I live so close) and I was excited to finally ride him!

I walked him out of his stall and decided to take him on a short walk around first. He was cautious but curious until we got out toward the field. There's a horse that the BO said was a special one, and that horse must have told TC all about how this facility was actually a place where they TORTURE HORSES. TC lost his ever loving mind after that horse riled him up. We finished our walk around the barn with him twitching and slamming himself closer to the ground when anything happened or didn't happen.

Walking on a loose rein because you realize
that this isn't the location they torture horses

Then to make matters worse for him, I tried to get him into the old factory where they torture horses barn where the tack lockers and cross ties were. He said no a few times before cautiously walking in.

He stood there pawing, dancing, and rearing for the entire time I tacked him up. I know him well enough now to know that this bad behavior was due to 1) hating being tied up when he's anxious and 2) he can't see any horses from in there when he's there alone.

I took out my clicker stuff and a longe line, but prepared to ride him. Honestly, this is not a horse you can longe down. He just gets worse and worse and worse. But I figured if I brought it out there, it'd make me feel better just having it, and I was right.

TC's entire demeanor changed once as he got his first click as I led him to the arena. He got clicked every time he went near anything he had decided was scary (a pile of dirt, a cavalletti, ground that looked different than other ground, a horse who was previously outside walking inside, and "arena snakes" which are just tubes coiled by the arena). What he didn't think was scary at all, but what I thought was a bit scary, were the several giant trucks that went barreling on the road by the arena.

Spot, who somehow has survived living in this
place where they torture horses for a while now,
probably just stockholm syndrome

I hopped on and we did a lot of walk to halt transitions to get that whoa button real sharp. When he's nervous, his bolts are like 10x worse than his hilarious playing bolts, so I wanted to make him default to whoa. It was slow and steady-ish, not always calm, but we worked our way through a typical ride. He was a bit coiled up and tight through his back, but for how terrified he had been earlier, he was great! Maybe not steering very well and randomly running sideways at the canter, but he tried really hard. He even randomly gave me a clean change left to right.

In the end I did some sitting trot and both leg yields and shoulder-in. The covered arena is the size of a long court, so I got to play with geometry (sort of, the rain had made parts of it too gushy to ride through) and discovered that my turns onto centerline have gone to shit. Cool. Luckily I'll be riding in here until the ground hardens up outside so we'll have plenty of time to practice.

We stopped after a moderate amount of work, I didn't turn on the equisense because of reasons so I have no idea what we did, but he was sufficiently quiet, so I went with it. I decided to try to ride him around the ranch a bit. I adored our ranch walks at the other place. We had a nice long 15 minute walk to start off every ride and a shorter 10 minute walk to finish (though sometimes we'd backtrack on our 15 minute walk so we'd end with more like 20 minutes). It was fun to ride out and see all the other horses and a lot of the time I'd be talking on the phone with someone or listening to music.

Maybe they torture them out here?

I fully expect my horse to take a second to get comfortable at the new place, but he settled in okay walking around the barn he lives in. Then I tried to walk him past the gates of hell grain room and he really couldn't. After the grain room came this weird rubber thing that TC lost it about, and then a door to a slaughter house garage with glass so he saw a terrifying ghost his reflection, and finally a demon holding container propane tank. I had to get off of him to get him by it. He REALLY isn't okay with that.

We walked down to the pastures and walked out to greet all the horses. TC settled quite a bit when he saw the horses out there, I was able to drop the reins and take some behind the ears pictures. We visited Spot, who wanted nothing to do with us, before walking back to the barn. Once again we had to walk through the corridor of doom, but I was able to stay on this time. Peony and I have plans to ride together on Sunday so we'll see if Spot can convince TC that there's nothing scary about that pathway.

I wish I could say that TC was really good from then on out, but he wasn't. Unfortunately his neighbor came to join us in the cross ties, and then he and his owner (who is super nice!) left to go ride and TC started pawing like he was trying to dig a hole deep enough to hang himself. Then rearing over and over again. Even if you can't longe him down, you can get TC to rear himself down. Eventually his butt starts getting sore, I think, and he reconsiders it as a good way to throw a tantrum. The pawing though, that never makes him sore, he can paw for days.

Wait, how are all these horses not screaming in pain?

Hopefully he continues to settle in well! I will be riding him this morning before going back down to the bay for one last night before packing the rest of my stuff up (just what I need, more disarray) and heading back up on Saturday.

So far everything seems to be going to plan. The apartment is great, the barn seems really great, my limited experience at my new job seems great, my commute is pretty good during non-commute hours (so we'll see), and Peony has been so nice to let me invite myself to everything (got to see her ride Muze last night!). Now all I need is my cat up here so I don't feel so weird being alone. I didn't realize how much I loved having her around until I was completely by myself!

Moving Day

Moving day (for TC) is upon us! Today I'm going to drive to the barn for the final time, collect the rest of my stuff into the trailer, including the pony, and drive 2.5 hours north to his new digs. But as I'm preparing for all of this, I'm really feeling sad about leaving my current barn.

I love this barn so much. It's been the absolute best place to keep TC the last couple of years as he recovered from his suspensory injury. I can always trust that he is taken care of. I never worry about him if I have to leave for a few days. The footing is exemplary and incredibly well maintained. The trail course is super fun, and there's a lot of space for wandering around the ranch. I love all the arenas we have access to, including the covered arena with mirrors and a dressage court set up almost all the time. While I didn't have tons of friends there, I did make some really good friends who I looked forward to chatting with on the weekends.

The barn has seen so much of my riding career. It was where I took nearly all of my lessons with Tracey on Rico. TC came for his first Tracey lesson when he was 3 years old there. He came for bootcamp before he went lame, and he came in July 2016 after being at rehabilitation. The barn has seen me go from a barely 4th level rider to a Gold Medalist. It has seen me go from being afraid of my young horse to winning All Breeds last year.

If I ever end up back at this place, I'll consider myself and my horse very lucky.

Goodbye dressage court 

The plan is to move TC today, then I'll stay a couple nights in my new apartment (on site!) to get TC settled, then head down to teach my final bay area lessons (lies, I'll be back soon enough, but the final ones for now), and pack all my stuff up before driving back up on Saturday morning to move myself and my kitty!

I'm really excited but it's all bittersweet. Here's to new beginnings.

Tackling Rideability

This weekend I had a ton of stuff on my to do list. And I got almost all of it done! On my list was certainly to ride TC, and we had a couple of really great rides.

Friday's ride was... exciting. Like I said last week, TC isn't a fan of the rain, so he gets a bit tense and zippy in it. He also gets tight when he's not been out for a day, and when he's tight like that, he bucks a bit. I think it's honestly that he's trying to loosen up, which he needs to find a better way to do, but it's not him being bad.

So Friday it was raining and he was bucky, so we did a lot of that and a little bit bugged the other riders in the arena. It's not worth talking about, since Saturday's ride was so phenomenal!

I made him take selfies and this one is so silly

We started in walk and really focused on getting him stepping forward and into the bridle. He is really figuring out how to cover more ground at the walk, which is really nice to feel. He's always had a really good walk, but it's always been like he's walking through molasses. Saturday he perked up quite well and we rode some leg yields and shoulder-in within the walk, before playing a little bit with the turns on the haunches.

Despite wanting to do them very slowly, he's got the mechanic down at this point. There is no stepping out and there is only sticking if I accidentally turn him too tight. All but one was great on Saturday though, and I started to get fussier about making sure that he's still reaching for the bridle, getting him a little quicker behind, and adding a titch more bend to it all to prepare for turning them into real pirouettes.

The trot is always great from the start when I take my time doing a nice long walk warm up with a lot of lateral work, and sure enough on Saturday, it was pretty good from the start. We started with some figures, working on getting him reaching to the bridle and stepping off of my aids. He's been super in the bridle lately, and my goal now with the connection is to continue to make it a bit more robust and continue to build strength within it so that he doesn't ever feel like he needs to retract his neck to regain balance. So that's a good thing to work on in warm up.

Trying to get as much ranch wandering in as possible before it
starts raining again

We rode some leg yields in warm up and they were great! He still steps off my left leg a thousand times better than he steps off my right. Kate had the opposite experience, so I'm wondering if something is going on in my position that is making it hard for him to step off the right leg for me. So that will be a good question for whoever future trainer is when I can finally grab a lesson. We worked on continuing to improve the cross over in the leg yield left and keep him a bit more upright on the outside in the leg yield right. He stayed really well out to both reins in each leg yield, which is great, since he tends to either not connect to the right rein (when LYing left) or busts through it (when LYing right).

The sitting trot is for sure coming along and I'm so happy with where it's at. I know I still have a bit of the Pac Man abdomen going on but my backline is ON and it's getting stronger. I find that focusing on getting the backline turned on as it passes over my butt is really helpful. For the most part, it wants to stop at my mid thigh, so focusing on inching it further has helped a lot. His trot isn't feeling too bouncy anymore, but I know it is because I'm sore quite literally every single day I ride him.

From there we did our canter work. I'm starting to tackle the rideability in the canter quite a bit more and Saturday was no exception. The throughness at the canter is finally coming along okay. Still not at the level of trot/at the level I want it to be at, but he's actually really coming over his back a lot of the time. Until, that is, we have to go in a straight line. To the right, it's not bad at all and I can usually get him going totally straight into the mirror. To the left, he really struggles to keep the right side of his body up. He legitimately feels like he's going to fall over it.

He's not a fan of selfies

To fix this, I did some shallow loops. To the right, they were really great. He's super rideable in them, doesn't threaten to change, I can actually ride the canter instead of feeling like I have to hold it all together. To the left, it's really hard to get him to make the turn at the top of it. He'll come off the rail fine, but then when we go to turn back, he feels like he has to lean hard right to get back. It looks fine in the mirror, but the feeling isn't great and the throughness goes away. The exercise for sure exacerbated what I was feeling on the straight line. It's honestly all about the right rein, remember in the leg yield how he either falls away from it or through it? There's no INTO it involved. So I redoubled my efforts to ride him INTO the right rein as I came around the corner and we had a much smoother movement.

Still though, that shit is hard! To end, we came back to trot and played a bit with transitions within the gait. I really need to get my shit together with the mediums in trot and canter. I feel like I can't ride them quite yet in canter because of that right rein business, but the trot is very ready to begin to develop it. The lengthening is fine, but it can get a bit unrideable, where it feels like I slingshot him across the diagonal and hope for the best. I mean, I rode them like that for many years on Rico, and I'm not too worried about First level, but beyond that, I want him a bit more rideable. So we started with just adding power to our collected trot and seeing what happened. He got real fancy and I let it out a bit until I couldn't sit it as easily, then brought it back.

At the end, we wandered around the ranch and he got lots of pets and cookies. He can be kind of a dingbat sometimes (see: all the rides last week in the rain), but I really am having a ton of fun with him at this stage. He finally feels super accessible and it's just a matter of improving the throughness and collection, and maintaining all of that good stuff through new movements.

Thanks, TC

The culprit

Unfortunately we couldn't replicate the ride on Sunday. I came out to the barn to ride and TC had blown up a leg. I really wish it hadn't been the suspensory leg, but it was. The swelling was further down than the suspensory, kind of in the middle of the leg, and only on the inside. It wasn't hot and it was squishy. There was a small cut right at the top of the swelling, and he was totally sound, so here's hoping that he was just dicking around and that his leg decided to go nuts over a small cut. It happened recently on the other leg too.

We did a lot of walking and then a short ride just to keep him sane. By the end, his leg looked much better, so I gave him a gram of bute and we'll see what his leg looks like today! Really hoping that it's nothing serious.

Trainer Search

I once again find myself on a trainer search, and not just because I'm moving. I have wanted to find a new trainer after my last lesson with my previous trainer. She was an amazing trainer for me in the past, but I pretty much hate dressage after I ride with her. She likes TC well enough, but every other phrase out of her mouth is exasperation about how much better I used to be. It's become too frustrating and painful.

Will miss my lessons there though

I get that I'm not nearly the rider I used to be. Not even close. At the time, I was riding a TON of extra horses so could practice a lot more. I had a super safe, fun, older horse who was supremely talented and not at all explosive. We didn't have entire rides dedicated to keeping him from attacking birds, we just worked and worked. I never had to cut a ride short because I had a meeting. I had the time to do CrossFit 3-4x per week and I was strong as all get out. My other trainer once asked me why I was sweating in a lesson (I was sick and had to skip CrossFit for a few weeks). I sweat every ride now and I'm still figuring out how to sit the trot in my less fit form.

That's all totally fine with me, I knew this would happen when I switched from being a trainer to working a 9-5. But to hear how great I used to be and how disappointing it is for her to see me now? Not fun at all. I still work REALLY hard. Plus, I would not trade this out of shape, uncoordinated me for the stressed out insecure person I was before. I'm much happier now, even if my riding isn't as good. And I mean come on, COME ON, I am still a really decent rider.

So it's time to move on. She's a great trainer, I'd definitely recommend her to anyone in terms of her knowledge and persistence. She very much changed my riding completely and I would absolutely not have been a GP rider without her. I have so so much respect for her... but I can't handle the negativity in my life. I've done a great job in the last few years of gathering good people in my life and hanging onto them with dear life, but the other half of that is knowing when to let the negative people go. So it's time for a new trainer.

Oh well

I have a few requirements, which really differ from what I wrote in this post. It's just that I am now living a very different lifestyle and have a more sensitive (and much lower level) horse. I can't deal with the stuff I dealt with before. But some of it is very much the same.

1) I still can't ride with someone without their Gold medal, but I am more open to riding with someone without their Gold if they're particularly good at the Mary stuff. Like, riding with Kate a few weeks ago was really incredibly helpful, and she doesn't have her Gold just yet :) but as a regular trainer who I ride with every other week, definitely going to need them to have their Gold.

2) I still want someone who has produced horses from Training to Grand Prix. I am on that pathway and don't want someone who has never done what I am trying to do. I have ridden GP schoolmasters and they're not easy and I have a lot of respect for ANYONE who can ride ANY GP horse, but it's a different skill set to ride a trained horse vs train a horse.

3) I don't really care as much anymore about having a proven track record taking people to Grand Prix. I know how to ride all the movements and am confident in my ability to ride them correctly. I really just need some guidance vs someone to teach me how to do the movements.

4) Similar to the last point, I don't need to ride with an S judge because I have a pretty good eye for what is expected at each level at this point. Previously I really wanted someone who had seen a lot of GPs so they wouldn't put the level up on a pedestal and hold me back until they KNEW I'd score well. At that point, I needed acceptable scores. With TC, I want good scores, so I'm okay being held back a bit.

Like we've been working on leg yields
for a long time but STILL NOT GOOD
ENOUGH TO SHOW OKAY

In addition to those points in my last post, I also said a few other things that I didn't care about. I didn't care if my trainer was late, kind of mean, didn't want to ride my horse, or charged a lot.

I still don't care what a trainer costs if I think they're worth it. As much as I adored my lesson with Jeremy last year, I don't know if I will ride with him again. It was a good lesson, yes, and I learned a lot, but did I learn *twice* what my regular trainer could teach me? No.

I still don't care if a trainer doesn't want to ride my horse. I fully expect to ride with trainers with such a good eye that they really don't need to sit on him very often. I'm also pretty adept at describing what I am feeling if they can't see it.

Would love to ride with you again man, will settle for auditing!

But, here are some additional requirements that I didn't have last time.

5) I need a trainer who is detailed. I cannot stand trainers who teach in a way that I've dubbed "dressage porn" where it's just the trainer saying things like "go down the long side, yes, good job, now circle, excellent, more bend, really good! Now leg yield to the rail, so good, yeah, that's great." Like, sorry, if it makes me feel kinda dirty writing your lesson transcript out, I can't take a lesson from you.

6) At this point, I need someone who has trained under Mary Wanless. I want that first toolkit stuff super bad. Again, due to my own experience and TC's low level, I can definitely watch videos of us and know that I need more angle, more impulsion, more bend, more everything. But I want to become more adept at the rider -> horse toolkit, rather than the horse -> ideal horse toolkit. Since mine is quite well developed at this point.

7) I can't do the late, rude trainer anymore. I'll break it up.
7a) Instead of evening lessons once a week on a weekday while I'm in grad school with a super flexible schedule, I now have to give up part of a precious weekend day to take a lesson. If my trainer is going to be up to an hour and a half late (but will occasionally be on time and cut a lesson short if I'm late), I'm giving up a HUGE amount of time. And even if I could ride on a weekday, I still don't want to wait around for an hour for a lesson because I need to go to bed early to get up for work!

7b) I really can't handle a mean trainer anymore. It's really interesting! There's mean in that they push me hard, but then there's mean about my riding. I can't stand being told to *use my considerable experience* when I'm riding. Like, fuck off. I am doing my best, I'm not just sitting up there ignoring my past, acting like an idiot or wanting to redo my education from scratch. Just because I'm not riding the same way as I did when I had a ton of free time, was riding a ton of horses, was riding a smaller mover with a quieter mind, and was doing CrossFit 3-4x per week.... yeah. Give me a break.

7c) I can't handle a trainer who doesn't like TC. Rico was a really generic warmblood type. Lots of trainers got along with him. TC is not a warmblood, really. He's also not quite a baroque type. He has a busy mind like a baroque type (though this is calming down as he gets older, phew) but the athleticism and back-moving-ness of a warmblood. I feel like I need to be a lot more careful with TC. You can't pull on his face, you can't beat him with a whip, you can't fight with him. He's not the sort you can yank onto the bit, kick forward, and get in fights with about movements. So having a trainer who wants to work with horses and doesn't automatically assume that the horse is "being a jerk" or is "an asshole" or what not is very important. I'm also personally in need of a trainer who isn't afraid of him. They don't have to ride him, but they can't be scared for me either.

Not an asshole at all, he is the best horse in the world (except
Rico of course) 

So we'll see how the trainer hunt goes. I have up to four in mind. It kind of depends on how things change this year. They are all Gold medalists at least, three of them (I think) have track records of getting riders to the FEI levels, if not Grand Prix, two of them have ridden internationally themselves. Two of them have studied Mary Wanless extensively. Fingers crossed one of them works for us! I think this year I'm going to really prioritize getting a ton of lessons (once as I buy a trailer though, but that's another post). This year is really important to get him set up for the collection required at the next few levels. I'd love to take two lessons a month and press forward with this awesome horse!

Hates the Rain

Wednesday morning I went out to ride TC and, despite raining all night, it was actually clear! I was really excited, because TC is the actual worst in the rain. I'd take 30 degrees but dry rather than 50 degrees and wet any day.

Shouldn't have hand walked on the ONE day it was
nice this week, why am I so dumb?

I pulled TC out, slogging through the mud and seeing that he'd taken the opportunity to roll in it. Gross. Thanks, buddy. He got to go straight to the wash rack to get his toes sprayed off so I could pick his feet. As I was putting on the bridle, it started to sprinkle rain. That was fine, though I definitely didn't want to get on and do our usual walk around the ranch before our ride. We managed to get into the covered arena as it started really raining.

I was distracted by my phone so I decided to walk him around a couple laps at first. TC spooked at the water coming out of the gutters, a cat that he's seen a lot before, and the same guys who feed him feeding another horse (how dare they). Then, across the barn, some tree trimmers were trimming a tree. TC hated that as well, spooking again and again every time they started up the tree trimmer.

When we made it back to the mounting block, I hopped on, like you do when you're stupid. Normally I would have just put him away, or done ground work and then put him away, but I've been trying to ride him more and get him fitter before his move. I'm so unreasonably nervous that he'll go lame the moment he steps off the trailer at the new barn. I figure if he's fitter, he'll be less likely to go immediately and permanently lame when he moves. So whatever, gotta put in at least a leg stretcher ride.

He spooked at his clothes that he had watched me
put on this bench the whole ride

TC was a ball of nerves and I was not here for it. Normally I'm in a better place mentally when I ride him, but I've been actually having some stupid health things. My stomach is incredibly sensitive, and I ate some weird food and had a weird meal schedule last week. Over last weekend, I had some really scary chest pain and I a little bit thought I might die.

I had resisted going to the ER for a while just because it came and went and I had no other cardiac symptoms. Finally Tuesday I went to the ER and they ruled out heart problems due to me having all the negative predictors of it (like, I'm young, no family history, fit-ish, not overweight, super low blood pressure, and low cholesterol), they said that it was probably esophageal spasms related to my stomach problems. It can be exacerbated by stress, which like, I'm obviously under given the move.

Since then I had/have been on the stupidest fucking diet trying to get my stomach under control. Essentially I eliminated anything and everything that could possibly bother me. So far I can eat white bread (no sourdough), eggs, and apparently greek yogurt. I tried a banana and it was a no go. No fried food, no chocolate, no sugar, no fat, no caffeine, no citrus. I'm also taking out all spices and basically everything good in the world.

So why am I bitching about this? Well, Wednesday morning I was riding my horse and half of my mind was on my chest pain (I had eaten a plain frozen waffle that morning, apparently that's not okay), wondering if I should have insisted that they do an EKG to really look at my heart rather than just making assumptions that I was okay.

Cool

Meanwhile, TC was pretty much just terrified of everything. He scooted non-stop. Just constantly. We'd get done with one scoot, I'd put him back on the aids and stuff him through half a circle, before we'd be scooting off again. We had one really good bolt, where he completely downshifted and ran away with me. I had to be careful bringing him back because he felt like he was going to go up as I slowed him down. Damnit, TC.

I finally put him in the canter because then at least I can sort of channel his scoots into work, and we schooled a bunch of small circles. Between scoots, bucks, and spooks, he really showed me how awesome he's going to be in the future. We got a few circles that were closing in on voltes, where I felt like I could really move him around. The voltes felt like if I half halted and put my outside thigh on, he'd pirouette. Just like in trot when it feels like I could half halt and get passage, this was NOT true, like if I half halted in that canter he'd probably just dump into an ugly trot. But he's giving me really good work, even if he then spooks at the gutter (again) and takes off with me.

I can't wait until it's all brown and ugly again

I'm pretty done with winter. It's been a relatively mild winter, with a nice long break in February, but I'm always super done with winter the moment that winter starts. If winter could just be a week or two of crazy weather that I could just give TC off and I'll just stay inside eating pho and tofu soup, I'd be very much on board with that. I know I can't even talk at all since I live in California and our winters are like some places' summers.

Maybe TC needs to go to rain camp in Seattle or someplace for a few months in the winter to get over his weird shit about rain (and appreciate how mild it actually is here). Or maybe I just need to ride him in the rain constantly. The latter sounds more achievable so I'm off to go ride him in the rain again. This horse WILL be good in all weather types or else...

Last Day

Today is my last day at my job before I'm taking ten days off to move and enjoy life a little bit. I'm really sad. This has been the best job I have ever had, and I wish the school would have realized earlier that when you give 1.5% raises every year (and no bonus/performance based raises ever since it's a public sector job) but cost of living goes up 6%... you're going to lose people. But alas in order for changes to actually come through, people have to rock the boat, so they're losing me just like they lost a few other people this year and hopefully that will be for the best in the long run. Doesn't mean it wasn't an amazing job, just meant that I'd eventually have to live in a box.

The like... one time I drove over the hill on the weekend

When I applied for this job, I knew nothing about the field of institutional research. I just wanted a job. I quit my previous job because I struggled with the people I worked with and when I interviewed at this job, everyone seemed nice enough. Unemployment made me real desperate and I figured I'd take it and see what happened. It sounded interesting anyway.

In the last year and a half I've made so many good friends at this job, have rarely had a stressful day, and have not cried once due to work (except yesterday on the way to work because I'm sad to leave). Every day is full of laughter and I genuinely looked forward to going to work nearly every day, even in the summer when I'd really honestly rather be riding my horses all day. And that's not even because of the work itself, which I do truly enjoy doing.

This new job is in the same field and is essentially the same work, but new people. And while everyone I met at my two interviews seemed so incredibly nice and friendly, I can't help but to be really nervous. I can't help but to doubt that I will ever have such amazing people to work with again, but it's early in my career in this field so I'll stop drawing crazy conclusions like that. Regardless, I feel really lucky to have had this job and I hope to stay in touch with these people for a long time. I know I have a lifelong friend in a few of them and the others, I'll at least grab a drink with at the conferences.

GOOD-BYE COMMUTE WILL NOT MISS YOU

The rest of the week is going to be super fun. I wish my week off hadn't landed on the week where Kate is out of town, but at least I can help her out by tormenting teaching her kids. I am, however, going to follow her around tomorrow.

Outside of teaching, riding, and packing, I'll be spending some quality time with Rico and my parents' dogs (also probably them and my brother/SIL who are in the area too), hopefully sneaking in one more pix in parks hike with my SIL, and making sure I eat all the things that I'm going to miss out on eating (although Sacramento has me covered, really). And then, we move!

Time Change Woes

What is wrong with me? Just like last fall, I feel very strange about the time change. I actually... don't really care about it. And part of me actually wishes that it'd just stay the same. Things might change after I move (since I'm not expecting to have flexible hours so will probably be riding after work), but for this week, I'm a little bit hating the time change.

Love riding in the daylight

Don't get me wrong, I love having more daylight after work, I think it's really amazing. But I tend to ride my horse in the mornings until school gets out. If I had my perfect schedule, I'd wake up with the sun every morning, go ride my horse, and then go to work. That's how it worked up until last weekend. Now I either have to a) battle traffic on the way to work in the morning so I can ride in the afternoon, or b) ride an hour earlier. Man, those are the first-est world problems there ever were. Oh boo I don't want to get up early to go ride the horse that I own.

But it's been really interesting to see how my hatred of the fall time change has slowly shifted into me not caring and even enjoying it. When I was in school as a kid, winters were awful. I hated the rain, I hated riding in the cold, I hated how dark it was (and that I spent many of the daylight hours indoors, I still hate that, it's so dumb). When I became a horse trainer, I really hated it. Having to distribute kids across the week in the after school hours, having some students have weird schedules where we'd have to switch their lesson every week just to get their lessons in. In the summer when they're all out of school, it's much better.

When graduate school came, I didn't hate it as much. My schedule was flexible and I was teaching less. I still disliked the rain though, the first year I was back in school I kept Rico at the ranch where there was no covered so that was a pain. And the second year he was at my current (soon to be former) barn for the winter, which was better. Then when he retired and I started riding TC, I didn't hate the winter the first year because he got a lot of days off when he was 3. The next winter he was on rehab so I didn't hate winter at all. Then last winter I switched my schedule after suffering for a couple of months riding in the evenings, and from then on the time change hasn't bothered me at all.

Why would anything bother me when my
pony is this awesome?

At this point, I kind of like the winter schedule. It saves me time, it allows me to both ride my horse and theoretically go out with coworkers or friends after work (though kinda late because my commute sucks), and I actually really love riding in the mornings vs the evenings. I find that when I ride in the mornings, I can focus a bit more because I'm not coming straight from work. It's always daylight in the mornings, which is nice on a horse who hates the dark. And I tend to hurry a bit more so I don't end up at the barn for 3 hours. It means I have more time at home in the evenings, which makes me feel like a normal human who doesn't drive for a million hours every day.

We'll see how the new job goes though, I may love the time change again! Tomorrow is my last day at my current job and then I get a week off to move my horse and myself. TC moves a week from today.

In the Details

In addition to working hard on my own position (need. lesson. must. move. first.) and the key movements of First level, TC and I are adding another layer of detail to our work. 

As I climb the levels once again, my main goal is to take it a little slower and do it a bit more right. It's really hard to balance chasing medals and taking your time to create a horse with minimal training holes. I mean, there is obviously such a thing as going way too fast (where it is detrimental to the horse/every ride feels like a huge fight) and going way too slow (like with TC, too slow for me is taking more than a year per level unless something outside of training delays us).

But with Rico, I was very much on a time limit with his age and soundness, so we probably went a bit faster than we should have. I mean, he literally went from PSG to GP in a year. But I also worked my ass off, had a trainer who very much was dedicated to the basics without shortcuts and hey, he also never scored in the 50s in that time (we have exactly two scores at 59 on our record, one was when I was trying to ride through a back injury at First level and the other was at Third level when it was windy and half the arena letters fell over and he was very skeptical about that).

Me as a kid stupidly trying to ride through a back injury, young
Rico is like "why is this my life, why am I so off the bit?"

TC is not on a time limit necessarily. If he starts taking more than a year per level, I will reevaluate why that's happening. Is it because of me? I sometimes can't ride enough and all last year didn't take many lessons so that slows us down. Is it because of outside circumstances? Moving means that we'll be missing our opportunity to show for a while because of both finances and having to get settled in a new place. Is it TC? Hopefully TC is the world's most sound horse from now on but it could be that another injury sets us back again. Or it could be that physically the work becomes too much for him and he needs to find a new owner who will be happy at the lower levels. But he is my GP prospect so hopefully that's never the case. 

So when I think about the levels with him, I think about not just doing enough to get through a test to grab a score (which, tbh, is how Rico was trained for a long time), but thinking about how the work we are doing now is going to affect the rest of his training. Good turns on the haunches and good shoulder-in at Second level mean good full canter pirouettes at Grand Prix. Taking my time to put the changes on correctly means that I won't spend a full year or more making them clean. It means that he won't struggle with the tempis even further on. Taking my time to really develop the half pass correctly (so using my inside leg and sitting to the inside from the start, even though I hate those things) means that later on at the GP level, we won't struggle with the steepness of the zig zag causing us to lose cadence.

I like Nicole's quote for this: slow is smooth and smooth is fast. I may be slogging through the lower levels right now at a pace slower than I could, but theoretically the movements will come on faster and more correct later on.

Ask me how I know, it took a long time to fix our half pass

But there's lots of little things too, that show up in every test. Halts, rein backs, canter to trot transitions. Every single test in the upper levels has these little movements that the horse has been doing for years. So why did I keep getting 6s and 7s on these movements on Rico, who theoretically had been trained to do them so long before? 

So with that in mind, TC and I are adding another layer of detail to our rides by really focusing on the movements that I know will haunt us forever. I figure I can't do enough of these movements early-ish in his training.

Trot-halt-trot

Starting at First level, these transitions are no longer allowed to be through the walk. So that means no walk steps at all in or out. For a long time, TC could not halt to trot. I don't know if it was me (probably) or him (also probable), but he always wiggled out of the transition and then picked up an equally wiggly trot. The trot to halt was always quite weak, and honestly remains that way, but we're getting good ones sprinkled in.

For the most part, fixing my position has been the key to getting that transition down. I realized a bit ago that I let the structure of my position go when I did a downward transition from the trot, so fixing that and keeping my backline engaged meant that I could really keep riding into the downward. For him, it's all about strength. He just needs more of it. But he's also getting a fair amount of praise when he gets it, or even gets close, so that's helping a lot. 

Canter-trot transitions

The canter to trot transition exists in tests for a very long time. I think almost all (if not all, I'm not going through all the tests right now though) of the tests require at least one canter to trot transition. There's no reason why, by First level, this can't be at least a 7, if not an 8, and remain that way for a long time. This was a stupid place I lost points with Rico because he'd always stutter into the trot and think about walking. It wasn't until I was prepping for PSG with Tracey that she pointed out that it was ABSOLUTELY ridiculous to lose points on that transition (and like, it was also evidence that he wasn't really balanced/in front of my leg/collected/through).

TC isn't terrible at it, but there is a few moments of me having to pick him back up afterward. And I'd love to be able to canter right away after it, I feel like I'm gambling in the simple changes through the trot sometimes. So we're working hard on those.

Rico always halted a little out behind, but at least he's square

Trot-halt-rein back (eventually trot out of rein back)

Rico struggled so much with this at first. There would be times where I'd ask him to rein back and he'd go super wide behind and inch himself back. There were also times where I'd ask him to rein back and he'd just rear. Makes sense looking back, I wouldn't release pressure when he took steps back (because they weren't good enough), but I sure as hell released pressure when he reared. We did get this down real well by the time we were at Fourth, but why lose points at Second?

TC is also kind of the worst at reining back. His go to maneuver in general is to stick his head straight up in the air. See something scary? Head in the air. Asked to do something new? Head in the air. So when I asked him to rein back, head in the air. We have done a TON of work in hand with this, and now he's kind of putting it together undersaddle too. Rein back != head in the air. Please. He's still taking weeny steps back and likes to start reining back the second he's halted, so we have a long way to go, but it's coming along.

Walk pirouettes

I guess these aren't exactly the basics, but they're almost always double coefficients moving up the levels and they're present for a long time. I went through a bout at Third level where Rico and I just didn't score very well. I nailed it down to bad walk pirouettes. I'd literally have no major mistakes, just a misstep in one walk pirouette and my score would plummet. Gah.

So I've been working on them quite a bit with TC. The reason why we're starting this like... a year or more before we'll need them is because of how slow his fucking walk is. It's taken me quite a long time to get him marching in the first place. For the longest time he had two walks: a very slow funeral march and a jigging mess. We can get the more forward march now, which is great. But he also needs a more active walk that covers less ground for the pirouettes. If you get him too amped, he just trots when you ask for it. So it's taking a long time to even get a walk that is capable of doing walk pirouettes. The good news is, we have schooled them, and when the walk is good, they are perfect. So it's more working on his walk than working on the actual mechanic of it. 

TC, I've seen your future and it involves a lot of cantering very
slow and going in very tiny circles

Hopefully all this work on these little details ends up giving us a bit of a leg up arithmetic-wise later on. For now, it's just about filling in holes when they're really shallow and only causing us to trip over, vs when they are very deep and we fall way down into one.