Brought to You By Tryptophan

On Friday, I had a lesson on TC for the first time since September!

After my really questionable ride on Thursday, I started feeling really iffy about this lesson. Tanya is more expensive down here and only comes down once a month. The idea of having an entire lesson where all I get told is to sit back and turn him in a circle when he got away from me... ugh.

I know a lot of people appreciate seeing their trainer when their horse is being bad, but when he's bad, I want to see a young horse trainer, not a dressage trainer. I'm also fully capable of handling TC when he's bad so don't need help with that, but there's only so much you can reassure your trainer that "I'm fine, just teach me the dressage and ignore how he's leaping and bucking"

I've never ever ever in my life used a calming paste. I very much value teaching TC to handle his shit in new places without anything helping him out. But I had gotten desperate and grabbed one from the store after TC had been such a dingbat at the ranch with the gunfire. I saw it in my trunk after my ride on Thursday and realized that this was an ideal circumstance to try it out.

I wasn't sure how TC would take it, so I followed directions and gave him the tube two hours before my lesson was to begin. I figured that if it didn't work, no harm done. If it worked too well, I'd just suffer through a lesson where I actually have to use my leg.

Saw us in the mirror for the first time in SO LONG

I arrived at the facility and left TC in the trailer for a bit, and he just stood there chilling out. He didn't even have hay. Then I took him out and he was the epitome of chillaxed. There was no spooking, no screaming... he was kind of stoned. I could see him standing there staring around at everything like "cool, cool, is there food here?" when a lot of the time he comes out of the trailer like he's on fire and trying to put it out.

The same thing happened when I got on him to warm up. He was responsive to me, it wasn't like he was tranquilized or anything, but instead of wanting to attack a bird in the arena, he just stared at it like "huh" and I could feel him give it finger guns like "yeahhh sup bird." So needless to say, if I opt to do this again (thinking of it for our first trail ride), I'll use half a tube.

He was so sweet when we were sitting and
watching a bit of the lessons, he kept like...
hugging me

Don't get me wrong, he wasn't super different, he was just TC without the buzziness, it was summer TC. He felt truly relaxed since moving. His trot was loose and relaxed, his canter was big and rolling when this whole last week, it's been basically on the spot and tense.

I was grinning when we started the lesson, I freaking LOVE this horse, and having him be relaxed and not freaking out about being in a new place or seeing a bird (ducks were coming in and out of the arena) was just great. No regrets, judge me if you want to, but having him feel relaxed and happy off the property for the first time in a LONG TIME was absolutely worth all the "why don't you just train your horse" bullshit I was convinced I might get by writing about this.

TC was like, where did the ducks go?

Alright, so the lesson. I told Tanya that showing was in the air right now but that I've been playing with the half passes and changes and things are going fine. He has been feeling a little... precarious... in the connection lately, but he's also been so freaking tense.

We started with the connection in sitting trot. I hadn't even gotten to do much sitting trot he's been so tense lately, so it was nice to work on it, even if my abs immediately started hurting.

TC was being so good that I kind of let him get away with staring at this big heron in the field every time we went down to one side of the arena. Tanya had a good point in that, if TC was really connected in the way he should, he wouldn't be able to get to the point of looking at it. Again, I was just so impressed he wasn't leaping over to it to attack it or spooking at it that I just kind of... ignored him.

So Tanya talked me through one of her ways of getting a horse quickly back to you, which is to take the inside hand and bring it into a slight indirect rein. It worked quite well and soon TC was with me.

Next, we worked on getting TC a little more over his topline near his poll. TC stays over his back pretty well, but if there's part of him that isn't always on board with that, it's near his poll. It goes back to the precarious connection I've been feeling - he'll stay on the bit, but when I go to change something, he can easily get a little tight near his poll or look at a bird.

Still love this rig! 

From the trot, we went into canter and looked at the quality of it. I think it felt amazing and had so much fun pushing it bigger and feeling the relaxation in his back. Tanya said to not let him get so giant. But... but it's so fun! We worked on the collected canter though, which is good. To the right, things went pretty well and he was able to sit down a bit more. To the left, he was way overstuffed on the right side of his body. Tanya had me ride TC quite straight in the neck and we did a lot of square turns off my right leg (this is a theme for the whole lesson - TC needs to be lighter off my right leg).

After that, we did some of the lateral work. TC's trot work felt great! In the shoulder-in and haunches-in, it's just about getting a bit more cadence, but he's solid in the work. For the half pass right, Tanya wanted to address my habit of grabbing at the right rein and driving his haunches over too much. She had me turn from the corner letter to A or C, ride shoulder-in on that line, then keep the shoulders on the line they are on and sweep the haunches over. It... kind of felt like crap but it looked good. I hate half pass for this reason. I also need mirrors for this reason.

I had mentioned to Tanya that while I hate trot half pass, I actually don't hate the canter half pass. I did not mean it on TC though. She took it to mean that and we schooled the canter half pass, which is predictably bad because he's done it once.

The big takeaway there is that TC is green to this movement (I mean again yeah I've schooled it once) and feels especially uncomfortable moving his haunches to the left off of my right leg. Definitely going to work on it, but I think I have a lot of work to do in other departments before really schooling the canter half pass.

Random gap in the mirrors, he kept seeing ducks
over here

Overall, it was a tough but good lesson. I hate not taking regular lessons because I get really bad lesson hangovers and this one sucks. TC feels so far away from our goals, despite us working pretty much exclusively on Third level stuff in our lesson. I know I can fix it though, so not a big deal. I also think I can swing another lesson this month, but certainly can take two in April (when TC moves to a cheaper and larger paddock).

After the lesson, I stuck around watching for a bit and a saddle fitter came up to me to give me his card. I'd heard of him before and absolutely pounced on him. I had him look at my saddle and he told me it wasn't bad, but it was tight on TC's shoulders. I brandished a check at him and I suppose looked desperate enough for him to fit it on the spot! So now TC's saddle is fit to him and gives him more room in his shoulder, phew, knock that off my to do list.

I'm excited to keep playing with these concepts and to feel how TC goes in his newly fit saddle!