Some Current Work

This week has been really busy at work as I wind down my employment at my current workplace. I'm really excited to move on but I am dreading next week because I have three (!) going away party things to go to and I think I'm going to cry at least at one of them. And probably on my last day. And probably while driving to my new place even though I'm super excited about it. And probably at my new job. I can't help it, even good change makes me a crazy person.

The horse though, has been absolutely impressing me lately. He's been super quiet and sweet to me, though today it's supposed to start raining, so we'll see. But up until today's ride, he's been so good this week and last weekend. 

Okay so side note, he will walk down this road just fine, not
spooking at the trees, but if he is in the arena on the other side
of the trees, the trees are terrifying. Horse logic is stupid.

Finally on Sunday we had a really stellar ride after a couple of tense ones due to the rain. We've been drilling the walk work a bit more lately and the walk pirouettes felt excellent that day. He still really struggles to keep the walk active, but luckily he's not the type to stick. I've done a ton of walk pirouettes on him (always facing the mirror so I can watch his legs) and he's only stuck once.

I've also been working a bit on the halt and rein back, just from walk. He's just kind of terrible at it. I don't blame him and I'm not worried about it, Rico went through a period of time where every time I tried to back him up undersaddle, he stood up. So TC wanting to take baby steps back with his head in the air is totally absolutely fine in my book. Take your time, bud. On the couple days we skipped out of riding due to the storm last week, we did some work in hand with the clicker and that seemed to help him understand the whole going backwards thing with his neck down. 

He saw a giant bird that he thought about going
over to

Then this week due to being busy, we've mostly just been putting in the miles. I figure if I only have 20-30 minutes to work him (vs 45+), we'll just put in miles in a good connection with good transitions. His connection in the trot is feeling great lately. I'm a bit annoyed with myself in that I feel like it's a conscious decision to get him really INTO the bridle. 

I'll get a few minutes in and I'll think he feels good and then I look in the mirror and see that he's not really coming up through his shoulder. So then I put leg on and really press him into it and the shoulder comes up, but it annoys me I won't do that immediately. I'm going to not have mirrors soon (but hopefully Peony will video me sometimes! And I'll be taking a TON of fence videos) so I'm paranoid that he's suddenly going to backtrack without the mirrors there to tattle on me. 

The canter transitions definitely feel better than they have. It was kind of a wake up call to realize that they're better on the long lines than undersaddle. If that doesn't scream rider error, I don't know what does. The issue really truly stems from the sitting trot not quite being there yet. It's SO MUCH BETTER but it definitely isn't perfect. 

He's super good about ground tying these days

The biggest thing has been to focus on my back line through my glutes actually, which seems weird. For some reason just thinking about that gets my back line engaged everywhere else. In addition to all that, watching Kate's lesson with potential new trainer helped me a lot too. Trainer described staying with the motion of the horse like staying up on the crest of a wave. And that helped me a lot (especially because it makes me want to get my chest forward, which is a main problem). When I get it, I can really feel his trot get much better. And that trot is addicting as fuck. 

It just feels SUPER loose and like it's a half halt away from passage. It is not. It is nowhere near passage and the horse is not trained to passage, but it feels like that. The only complaint, that I mentioned earlier, is that he really doesn't stay into the bridle when I go to sit the trot. I think this is 95% a problem that I don't ride him well into the bridle in the sitting trot, and maybe 5% of it being that because his trot changes when I go to sit it, it's harder for him and we need to build muscle. 

So much of it is me, I can feel myself not wanting to put him into the bridle because that's tiring. Sitting the trot in general with my new position is tiring enough, adding weight into the connection is way too much. But it's necessary, so I've been working hard at it. I think it will get better with time, and hopefully some lessons too!

Wandering around

Fingers crossed that today's ride doesn't go terribly in the rain. Either way I don't care. I'm just really enjoying this animal right now and I'm excited to move barns and start figuring out my training situation. I've done and redone my budget to include two lessons a month in it permanently. This is the year of lessons!