Shifting Perspective

On Monday I had a lesson at my barn! I had asked the organizer if there was a way that we could get my trainer to come to my barn because TC could be a bit different there than at other places. Tanya doesn't mind coming to a barn for one person but she does mind going to all the barns in the area. So this time she taught everyone at a barn nearby, then came to do me last at my barn.

Obviously TC was the exact same as he's been, so I didn't get any of the weird wiggly behind-the-leg-ness that was going on when I requested that she come to my barn. BUT it was really nice to not have to haul anywhere. I got so much done that night!

Pictures from my first ever lesson with Tanya just because I
didn't have my shit together for this post

I started out telling Tanya that I'd schooled the Second level tests recently and that while they were definitely harder than First, they were surprisingly doable. The only major issue was the counter canter. I told her I understood why people skipped Second and went straight to Third once as you don't need the scores and she was VERY against that. I also am quite against it (and then had to defend myself a bit lol I was like I AM NOT SKIPPING IT DON'T WORRY), but it was interesting to hear her perspective.

She said that because the Third level tests are so flow-y, they ride super easily and allow you to not have to make as quick of decisions/be as effective of a rider. The Second level tests are much harder, so they're important to get good at if you want to make it to the higher levels. I definitely want to do the level, I want to be good at it. I want to lay this foundation down so solidly that he skips through all the hard stuff at the upper levels. Er, at least doesn't get stuck anywhere.

I think this was the moment where I realized he wasn't just a
backyard bred pasture pony anymore

Once in our warm up, we started with some big figures while working on my posting mechanic before doing some leg yields. I didn't really realize how much the leg yield would help us in the warm up, I almost never put it there just because, as I'll explain later, my main problem is still thinking of TC as a First level horse.

From there we looked at the canter, which looked good. Tanya wanted me to do a little more forward and back in warm up, as in both trot and canter I tend to focus on too much forward. The collection in the canter has been a little iffy recently only because of my Rico baggage- I have a long history of being encouraged by trainers to ride the pirouette canter behind the leg. So while TC is learning to do it correctly, my tendency is to still ride it more earthbound than Tanya wants it to be.

My main goal with this horse is to set him up super well for each level so that nothing comes as a giant surprise. This is a big step to getting the pirouettes to be easy. Tanya said that once we have the pirouette canter on the spot and in front of my leg, the turning part of it is the easy part.

Back when I was riding him so low in front

We looked at the shoulder-in and haunches-in. For the shoulder-in right, it needs a little less bend, which is funny because a few months ago it needed less angle. The shoulder-in left is perfect. The haunches-in is actually quite good now, I just need to settle it, which means to stop asking for a bigger trot within it. It's been so hard for him that I'm used to hustling him through it, now I just need to sit back and let him do it.

The half passes feel GREAT! I've been mostly working on haunches-in lately and really focusing on getting my mechanic correct - pushing him into the outside rein with my inside leg and having the outside rein be what guides the angle vs the outside leg. That's the same issue I have in half pass, and so the half passes were just brilliant.

The left one is better than the right, as he leaves his left hind a bit out behind him when going right. Once as I tapped the left hind under him though, damn. This horse is going to NAIL the half pass when we get to Third.

He's so much more of a grown up now and this was just in May!

Back in canter, we rode a bunch of counter canter. Tanya wanted me really focusing on riding his shoulders on the line, then pushing his haunches slightly outside the line. I could feel that the quality of the canter was lacking, but we agreed that it was just that TC wasn't yet confident enough in the counter canter. It feels more fragile than I want it to be. Though I do want to keep in mind what Tanya said at my last lesson - we don't want him so confident in it that it's hard to get a change on him.

The simple changes rode okay... I know that the better the collected canter is, the better they will ride (I got the canter on POINT this morning and the downward out of it was perfect). Tanya also wanted me to be quicker in the change - less walk steps. That's fine but it takes a second to change the bend, so speeding up the changes meant less actual changing and more just picking up the same lead. So that's a project too.

We hopped back into trot for some work in the medium trot. This shit is HARD. I'll probably dedicate an entire post to it at some point. Tanya's main critique is that he leaves his hind legs out behind him a bit too much, so we're to do a ton of quick transitions between medium trot and collected trot. My poor abs.

She had me bring him so up in this first lesson, but this is now
his warm up canter

We ended with some trot to halt transitions and that was a bit rough. There's something about this horse where this movement is so damn hard. It's always been hard for him. We experimented a bunch with changing my aids to get him to halt properly and finally Tanya seemed slightly exasperated and said the words "pull him off the bit" and I was like um okay. So I popped him up off the bit. Then halted from my seat and it was the best one yet. I think the main issue is that he dives/curls in the transition, which gets him to slam his front feet down rather than sit down behind. So we'll... try riding less on the bit I guess.

Afterward we talked about showing this fall and I realized that much of my hesitation with showing is just not seeing TC as a Second level horse. It seems so recent that we were trying to get his gaits good enough for First... so recent that the leg yield zig zag was hard vs something we now score 8s on. I know I'm putting in the time to train the horse, but I kind of expected to go through more of a slog with the Second level stuff. It almost feels too easy to have arrived at a place where we're ready to show at Second. I keep waiting to hit a huge wall and we just aren't.

I did tell Tanya that I wanted to see how the schooling show went and how much I could teach between now and when entries were due for the rated show. I really would like to show this fall, but I know that if we wait until spring, our scores will be better and I will have more money. Still, I do want to get it in my head that TC is a Second Level Horse (TM) so that I can keep my mentality on track to pushing for a solid year next year at Second and hopefully a debut at Third. TC the Third Level Horse makes even less sense to me. He's still such a huge dork.