Some Goddamn Shoulder-In

Tuesday's ride this week wasn't very good. TC only settled at the very end of our ride and I had a lot of frustration about that. It's annoying to be doubling my barn time to have only marginally better rides at the ranch. It's not like I could actually work on anything. I texted my friends "I just want to do some goddamn shoulder-in!"

He's so cute! And so weirdly proportioned, but I try to focus
on the cuteness.

I started thinking about actually moving TC now, not having to do this constantly-hauling-out shit. I decided to reach out to my trainer's barn, but they are full for this month but may have room in early August. If that's the case, I'll give thirty days on July 1st and then leave in early August to go either to my trainer's barn, my old barn, or another local barn (visiting two this weekend and checking in with a couple more). I can do this for a month but maybe not much longer, I'm so tired already!

After our tough ride on Tuesday and finding out I couldn't just drive my horse over to my trainer's barn tomorrow, on Thursday I came out wanting so desperately to have a good ride. I came up with several solutions. First, I didn't let him canter in both directions on the longe line. He gets zippy after canter work, so I just had him canter to the right, then we switched directions and I just trotted him, focusing on getting him to quiet down after the canter. Then got on. I think this made a big difference.

Second, I was ON it with the clicker at the walk making sure that he took a deep breath and chilled out before trotting. I know I'm going to hate riding the zippy trot, so I'm not trotting until the walk settles. I decided if I couldn't get it to settle, I'd just longe him and take him home.

I did get the walk to settle and when we picked up the trot, he was better. Not perfect. I still feel like I have to be really careful with my aids to keep him contained, but I was able to do more than just sit on one circle telling him to relax.

Love this bonnet, even if it just looks cute, I
do wish I had gotten it in blue, I think the gray
is too close in color to his own color right now

So we did some shoulder-in! It feels really good, well, as good as it can feel while posting. I can't quite sit his trot yet at the ranch (we worked on it on Thursday) because he's still a bit rigid in his back when I'm on him, but it was fun to have some things to work on off the circle.

We also touched on the medium trot and it's quite weak right now. I forgot that he gets super out behind with it so I rode it badly a few times before remembering what we were working on. The last one felt pretty good and much more under himself. The key is to keep it at like 60% of what he is capable of because any more and he starts flinging his front end about.

The canter work felt amazing. It's my main complaint at my trainer's barn, he's not forward enough in canter and when that happens, he bucks. On Thursday, I had the ideal combination of forward but rideable. I wanted to do some counter canter work to see how that was developing but damn is it hard to work on counter canter in such a small space... so I'll have to work that out. How on earth did Rico and I do anything productive in there?? Rico is a unicorn, that's how.

So instead, we did a lot of work on the long sides, making sure that he stayed straight and playing with square turns. The connection felt great and I kept the power contained pretty well, only a couple of times did he surge, but it was in control, he just wanted to offer me medium canter and instead of being quick to recycle that back to collection, I was slow with my half halt and we covered a LOT of ground for a step or two. Oops.

Clicker training is amazing, I don't know if I will ever use
side reins or a chambon or anything ever again lol

It was so nice to have a good ride! And to ride some goddamn shoulder-in and other movements. It gave me confidence knowing that the training is still there and I feel excited to hopefully be able to start working on some of these things.

Today I have a lesson with Tracey again, I'm expecting it to be a bit more of the same - getting my body under control and working on the connection. I'm excited for that though, hopefully both TC and I can get our shit together and start making progress again.

Time Makes Fools

I have a story that I find myself telling frequently these days. I think it's just because any time I experience any sort of FOMO or envy, I think back to a time in my life where these feelings consumed me and that's when I was an angsty teenager.

Disclaimer, for those of you who know this story intimately (all like, four of you lol), you'll recognize a few key elements that I've changed just in case. This person inspired this story, it's not a word for word recap.

In honor of this post about my past, old pictures of Rico and I!
Speaking of progress, I have gained about 15-20lbs since this
picture was taken and I am also way happier than I was in this
picture. 

When I bought Rico, I had a frienemy who also bought a horse. Her horse was a little younger and on par with the quality of horse Rico was. She rode with another trainer, a trainer that my trainer didn't like very much. My trainer was a gossip and so told us all sorts of things about how bad that trainer was. Looking back, that trainer was probably on par with mine as well.

At Rico and my first show out, we scored quite well. So did my frenemy a few months later. She actually scored a little better than I did...

Then at JR/YR Championships that year she beat me at Training Level (I also showed First). Ugh. It wasn't even by that much but it still infuriated me.

From then on, I obsessively watched her scores and compared them to me. We showed at Second together the next year and it was a toss up, sometimes I scored better, most of the time she scored better. I looked up judges, watched the other riders who rode with her trainer, low key hoped her horse would spook or something. You know, crappy teenage thoughts.

She kind of consumed my dressage life for a while in the very beginning. She beat me at Second level championships and then I dropped off the face of the dressage earth for a few years. She got her Bronze while I was sidelined with Rico and I was obviously annoyed.

Dear younger self, that is not a topline, don't worry, you'll learn
how to put one on and your First level horse will look better than
Rico at Fourth level. Also raise your damn stirrups girl. 

Fast forward to 2009 and my frienemy, who I have forgotten about by this point because it was four years later, is dealing with a soundness issue while I get my Silver medal. Fast forward to 2013 and I take Rico PSG while her, well I have no idea what she was doing. Another year and I have my Gold medal and still have no idea what she's doing. I only know now that she hasn't shown in ages because of this post inspiring me to look her up.

The thing about this story is this: she probably had no idea how much I was comparing myself to her and obsessively following her riding career for those three or so years. I wanted to beat her so bad. And you know what, teenage Megan, you did, you have your Gold and she doesn't.

But that doesn't make me feel good as an adult. It just makes me realize how much any little tinge of envy or FOMO I have now is probably not going to matter in ten years, twenty years.

I wore this top hat for one season before
the big movement toward helmets, it was
a big deal to me then but now it just looks
kind of silly!

This has been tricky with TC because I know I'm a capable rider and I know he's a capable horse, but Second has eluded us while I see people with younger and/or less capable horses skirting up the levels. Now, because I'm an adult, I feel excited for those people! I know that TC is just going to take me a little while, even if he is talented and I have experience. He's just one that takes longer. Maybe next time I'll have one that can do two levels a year or what not, but this one can do one.

The other thing I take away is how much my trainer fueled my dislike of this poor girl due to her own feud with the girl's trainer. I try really hard not to be a snarky MF when I'm with my students. Every trainer has something to offer that another one can't. Maybe the trainer isn't a great instructor but provides a lot of support for their students in other ways. Maybe the trainer is kind of mean, but their students are okay with it because of the quality of instruction. Who knows what people are getting out of their training situations and barring any real abuse (which is horrible and I don't condone it), both trainers and clients should make their own decisions.

It's tough though, because the more your clients think that you're the be all, end all dressage trainer and everyone else sucks, the more likely they'll put up with your bullshit. I try really hard to encourage my students to branch out and ride with other instructors (making recommendations as to who I think is along the same lines so they don't waste their money if they like my program) and try really hard not to bad mouth the instructors I do dislike with a dying passion. I save that for my private chats with friends.

Couldn't talk about old times with Rico without posting a picture
of us jumping! This was clearly when I fucked up my ankle
that then led to me inevitably falling off Sunny haha

So I've been thinking about that situation a lot because of TC taking a while. And I figured I'd share it here.

Tentative Fall Show Schedule

While I think that taking a season off of dressage isn't a bad idea, I also do like showing, and so does TC.

I'm still very much on the fence about this. On the one hand, I like showing and it honestly doesn't matter if we score badly, he was ready for Second last year, etc. On the other hand, scoring under a 65 makes me feel meh. And I like spending money on things that make me feel better than meh. Skipping a year, the year that I got sick with mono, had my horse boarded at a barn he hates, and where I haven't been taking many lessons... well, it's not a bad year to skip.

Either way, our year involves a lot more of this

In addition, I've once again got a week long trip to Michigan planned this summer to visit family, which I am so excited about. TC will get that week off to hang. I like giving him vacations, I think it helps our relationship to have some time off and it doesn't harm him in the least. After that vacation, I'm going to go to this dope-as-fuck wedding and then we tentatively (how many times can I say this word in this post) immediately jump into showing. Eek.

So all that should tell me not to do this, but I want to at least get on the lesson schedule that will set me up the best for these shows I have tentatively planned. If we don't go through with this schedule, at least we get a lot of great lessons.

Here is the tentative plan:
6/29 - Lesson (take a half day)
7/4 - Lesson
7/6 - Lesson
7/13 - Lesson
7/20 to early August - Vacation and then bringing him back into work
8/6 - Lesson (take a half day)
8/10 - Greenville
8/11 - Greenville
8/15 - Lesson (take a half day)
8/18 - ASH
8/25 - Lesson
9/1 - Lesson
9/8 - YY

Can't wait for this view again :) 

The Greenville show I *think* counts as two shows. That plus the other two, ASH and YY, are going to add up to four shows necessary for All Breeds. I need eight scores, only 2 at 2-3, but I hate 2-2 enough where I'm thinking of just doing 2-1 and 2-3 at all shows. It seems kind of weird, 2-1 is so easy now and 2-3 is the hardest test of the level. Maybe TC's zippy counter canter bullshit that's happening right now will lead me to want to do 2-2 just to escape the three loop serpentine (I mean we have to do it, but not four times).

In addition, YY is a new facility for him. It has been a great facility to me in the past (did my first GP on Rico there! Among other milestones) but I just think TC is going to hate the show arena. I'm thinking that hauling up the day before to school and staying overnight is my best bet to having a good horse, buuuut that adds so much money. Like probably doubles the cost at least. Ugh. It might be possible to go school there at some point at the end of August.

Greenville last August, hey he's way more collected in his
canter this year!

In a perfect world, we'd be ready to dip our toes in at 3-1 for October Greenville (I love that facility if it's not obvious), BUT the weekend before that show is my first L Program weekend in AZ, so we'll see if I can swing both. I have the L program pretty much paid for so it's not a money thing as much as it's a my horse doesn't have his flying changes thing.

Never Go Full Hippo

After our kind of disastrous ride on Saturday, I was tempted to just bring TC back to the ranch on Sunday and work on it. Then I figured that I should take advantage of having the time available where I could trail ride him AND the trail facility with all the water was quickly drying up. So I forced myself to abandon dressage and trail ride.

Best trail pony

 

Water!!

It was wonderful!

TC had never been to this facility, though this was my third time in like a month. The first time being on Flounder and the second on Rico.

I was VERY curious to see how TC handled going to a brand new trail facility by himself. On the one hand, he spent most of the ride the day before in a familiar place running away with me. On the other, he's always been very good on the trails.

Water crossings

Love this place

Turns out, he was absolutely perfect and it was an amazing ride!

He was just a little skeptical about the water at first, needing to sniff it, eat some grass around the water to confirm that it wasn't poisonous (also he's rude), and think about turning around. By the third crossing he had accepted that this was his life. By the fifth he was getting enthusiastic. By the time we were at the last crossing, he wanted to go explore in the creek further so he ventured off into a deeper spot and I had to pull him out of it before he decided to go full hippo on me.

There weren't any horses out there until the very end. He's funny about people though. He doesn't care about bikes and ignores them, but if he sees hikers, he gets really excited.

We stalked some hikers for a while, him trying to trot to them when he saw them in the distance and me holding him back. Soon they stopped and let us pass, TC walked enthusiastically up to them and I had to kick him past them because he wanted to shove his face in their faces to see if they had treats. This happened several times.

So excited

Never go full hippo, TC

At the end when we saw the horses, he started to scream for them. Until then, he was having a grand old time forgetting that other horses even existed. Then we see them and his stupid little face goes straight up in the air and his stupid little ears get smashed all the way forward and it's like he woke up from his happy trail riding stupor and was like THAT'S RIGHT HORSES EXIST AND I'M OBSESSED WITH THEM.

But he was back to ignoring them by the end and stood quietly at the trailer while I untacked him.

Once again, trail riding this horse makes all the arena bullshit we're going through right now seem worth it. I downloaded several episodes of my favorite podcast, was on a loose rein the whole time, and generally just enjoyed the hell out of the day.

I think we'll probably not get out to this one until early next spring because although I like it, the water is my favorite part. In the mean time, I have a whole list of trails I want to get him on this year.

Consistently Inconsistent

Last week at the ranch was great with TC, we started making major progress and everything felt like it was about to fall together. Unfortunately that's not how things go with horses and on Saturday when I got home from a horse show, I brought him over to the ranch and he was kind of an idiot. 

I rode him back to the trailer, then he got loose
because he got scared and popped the twine he
was tied to

A few reasons I can think of: 

1) It was dinner time and I literally took him away after his second bite of alfalfa, he was insulted by me giving him grass hay

2) I wanted to experiment with the bonnet so I didn't ride with it

3) The damn cows were doing weird shit (wandering, celebrating pride month, scraping their horns on the wire fence) right next to the arena

4) I didn't longe him for very long

5) I wasn't as on it with the clicker

Although I wasn't able to see the positive that day, I can focus on the positive today. 

He had so much fun walking down the road
after we rode

So all that made for a tough ride. He still was better than at home though!

I played a bit with shoulder-in and was pleased to see that the buttons were still there and sharp as ever. I mostly did it in the context of keeping his left hind leg under him while also keeping him stepping into the left rein while tracking left. 

The canter was a disaster, but that's fine. Even though it was tough, I decided to just put him on a circle and work on myself amidst him trying to run off with me or stare at the cows. My biggest issue is tracking left (obviously) where all I want to do is ride the left side of him and let the right side fall out. I worked to sit right, open my right hand to get it to stop low key sneaking over the neck, get my left hand forward and toward the neck, and put my right thigh on. 

The disaster of the canter DID get better and honestly we did have some nice moments toward the very end when he got tired of bolting toward the cows. 

Such a good wanderer

Even though it wasn't a good day, it was okay. This horse just at his core isn't consistent. Well, he can be consistent, but more often than not we get into these months of inconsistency (on his part, I ride him very regularly). It becomes frustrating sometimes because I know that I'm capable of getting him through the levels rather easily. He shows good promise for all kinds of things (various movements and the collection/extension required). He's built decently enough and I've worked hard to help him work around his conformation challenges. 

But there are days like this, where it seems like I'm just going around and around and around just surviving. Can't work on counter canter because I can't take him off the circle. Can't work on much lateral work because he's too tense. Can't work on sitting trot because his back isn't supple. Can't do any extended work because it'd make him nuts. Can't do any collection because he'd just drop his shoulder. 

On those days it's hard not to become frustrated. I'm over here like I KNOW WHAT I AM DOING JUST LET ME DO IT TC. And he's over there like THE COW-POCALYPSE IS COMING WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE. Even though he was literally raised next to an entire herd of cows. 

He's consistent where it counts (safety-wise at least)

But that's just TC. And I'm okay with it because of how great he is aside from being sometimes really inconsistent. Over time he has gotten better and we're still coming out of this weird situation at his home barn. In the long run, I won't remember days like this ride, I'll remember cantering down centerline, whenever that happens. 

You Win Again, Gravity

I talked a lot of my situation with TC this week and thought I'd share a stupid but kind of funny story to break the heavy stuff up.

I have this pipe dream of taking Sunny, my mom's pony, to a schooling event at intro level.

Sunny has silicosis, but that seems to be pretty well managed at this point. I'd been riding him a bit this winter for my mom, because she gets nervous about riding him, then avoids riding him, then feels more nervous about riding him because he hasn't been ridden. Also he's fat. So as things got tricky with TC, I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone, and start riding Sunny a bit.

Sunny! I don't have any pictures of me riding
him I guess

At first I just rode him for fun. It was cool to have a pony to mess around on in the winter, ride him bareback, canter around with my arms out, basically relive some of the stupid shit we all like(d) to do with horses when we were kids now.

One day I put up a tiny jump and trotted him over it. He hadn't been jumped in a while, actually since the silicosis diagnosis (which, before then he had been very reluctant to jump due to the joint pain that the disease causes). He was SO excited for the jump, so my mom got excited about letting him jump again and bought some jump blocks.

Since then, I've been jumping him occasionally, mostly bareback, mostly over the tiniest of jumps.

Last weekend after my *awful* lesson on TC (just due to him being a dork and me realizing I had to move barns for him, not the new trainer, who I adore and who has been emailing me every day with suggestions/ideas to keep TC happy until I can move him), I figured I'd like to go jump Sunny.

Riding Sunny also has a perk of hanging out
with this amazing dog

I put on a saddle, but forgot my boots and helmet, so I just borrowed the spare helmet that my parents have for guests. Tennis shoes... sure. I thought about riding bareback, but then I remember seeing that the tiny intro logs this weekend weren't as tiny as I thought they were, and that if I wanted to do intro one day on him, I needed to up my game. So saddle it was. And the jumps went up (not that much though).

I was trotting around in the saddle when my left ankle pinched. Ouch. I have pretty bad anterior ankle impingement on that ankle (getting it looked at this fall, it might need surgery, ick). It affects me mostly in weight lifting when I have to squat because my right ankle has way more mobility and my left ankle hurts when I try to match it. So I have to be careful to not twist over my right ankle.

The first time I ever felt the anterior ankle impingement was when I was encouraged to put my heels down while jumping a long time ago. That was when I switched from riding in tall boots to riding in short boots (with laces that I could make very tight to prevent the ankle from flexing all the way) with half chaps. Dressage never makes me feel iffy in my ankle so I forget that it's a thing when I'm riding.

Tiny jumps

So, I'm jumping Sunny in the saddle that evening realizing that I'm constantly standing over my right leg, which is not a normal thing for me. My right ankle was just more flexible so that leg stayed down and anchored while my left leg was less stable and I had to kind of stand in the stirrup to prevent my ankle from flexing too much.

It didn't occur to me that this would be an issue. I mean, not that day. I figured I'd wear my boots next time and see how it all felt, then maybe find my old half chaps and boots and keep those with Sunny so I could have boots to use AND protect my ankle from the stirrups. But whatever, Sunny used to teach tiny children, he's safe.

My parents' barn is amazing

Alright, so we're coming around to the fence, set a bit higher than we had been jumping (I've only jumped him once since being sick and I made sure it was very tiny, this was slightly less but still very tiny), and Sunny sees a longer spot, which he sometimes gets excited about and leaps over. He did just that and I stuck with him, but when he does this, he usually lands bucking his tiny stupid pony bucks. We were jumping on a circle to the left, so as he lands bucking, he turns left because that's where we were pointed. My weight went down to the right. All of it.

I hit the back of my head pretty hard and had an immediate headache. But other than that, I was fine. I hopped up, yelled "I haven't fallen off in ages!" and then got back on and finished the jump school. I was a little more firm with Sunny, who I always think is this plug of a pony who used to teach beginners and has silicosis, but he can be a bit of an ass. He was way better and I learned a valuable lesson with him, don't trust him so much.

The most hilarious part of this story is how my mom reacted. I came up to the barn and she asked how he was, my face was real guilty and I admitted to falling off. This was her response:

"He WHAT? Wait, you're telling me that *my* pony bucked you off? My pony bucked off a USDF Gold Medalist and 'A' pony clubber? REALLY?" Then I gave Sunny the finger and heard "did you just give him the finger??"

For the rest of the night (it was father's day so we went out to dinner), she made fun of me. Said she couldn't believe TC hasn't bucked me off yet if her pony managed to do it. Asked me how many times I had actually fallen off, said it was less than 100, then said that I wasn't a perfect rider yet (my first ever instructor said you have to fall off 100 times to be a perfect rider), and randomly just started laughing during dinner. I asked her if me falling off would make her nervous to ride him and she laughed and said no, he'd never do that to her.

Thanks mom, also your pony is an asshole.

TC's Commute

If all is going to plan, I'm mildly sleep deprived and riding my perfect horse off the property as this post goes out this Thursday morning.

Last we left off, I had decided to wait for my old barn to open and in the mean time, change TC's work schedule so that he never had to deal with the nerves that come from him being ridden at his home barn.

But where to go? My first thought was to just see if I could haul him to my old barn/hopefully our future barn. Then I could implement some sort of plan to drive all the boarders out so that I could move in. However, the ring fee deterred me. It would be about $300/month to go two to three times a week.

There's an arena I know that has amazing footing, is always open, and has no ring fee, and that's the arena at my parents' place.

The cow audience is also appreciated!

TC has been historically a bit nuts there too though. But it was for sure worth a shot. I brainstormed things I could do to get him more comfortable there and set a timeline on how quickly I'd want him to settle (as in, unload from the trailer and be quiet most of the ride) before switching facilities.

The plan was this: longe him with the clicker and reward relaxation behavior, then get on with the clicker and continue to reward relaxation behavior.

I had to get up at 5:30am to make this plan work. For this week, my rig still lives at my parents' place (because again, no fee for that) but I will be moving it to my barn this weekend so that I eliminate a full hour of this schedule. Essentially this is what my day looked like:
5:30 - waking up
6:10 - leaving my house
6:30 - in my rig
7:00 - at the barn
7:10 - leaving with TC in the trailer
7:30 - unloading at the ranch
7:45 - walking to the ring
8:45 - getting off and hosing down
9:00 - heading back to the barn
9:20 - unloading TC and feeding him grain
9:30 - heading back to the ranch
9:50 - surprisingly amazing trailer parking skills
10:00 - leaving for work
10:55 - walking in the door
6:15 - leaving for Crossfit (oh yes this day isn't over yet)
6:30 - Crossfit
7:30 - leaving to go home
8:30 - sitting on my couch, working from home to make up lost hours from arriving so late

But you know what, IT WAS SO WORTH IT.

Riding at my parents' place when he was just a baby who stuck
his nose on his chest!

TC unloaded pretty chill and stood nicely with a hay bag while I quickly tacked him up. I grabbed some fresh equine senior for clicker training and then put my longe line on him and we headed out to the ring.

He was looky but not spooky and I began rewarding any and all behavior that could lead to relaxation - blowing his nose, putting his head down, looking at me, standing quietly, breathing. We went both directions at walk, trot, and canter and he was great! No spooking, no scooting, no bucking, no bolting. Nothing. He just wanted to look around and I think he would have gotten more tense if I had not been constantly stuffing equine senior into him when he was relaxed. By the end his nose was dragging in the dirt and his eye was on me like LOOK HOW RELAXED GIMME CLICKS BITCH.

I'm like "please, TC, lengthen your neck" and he's like
"yes, lower? you want my nose lower?"

I got on and he was a little on edge at first. He definitely likes his people on the ground. I don't know if it's the trigger stacking or if he just thinks that whatever he is afraid of will eat me first if I'm on the ground. But I quickly began clicking for relaxation and he slowly settled.

He didn't totally settle until closer to the end under saddle, but it was a GREAT ride anyway.

I was actually able to work on things that I had done with Tracey in our lesson, which was great! I implemented a few changes for myself - sitting more to the right, getting my right shoulder back, and keeping my hands closer together using mane to remind myself if they were drifting. So much of this behavior of mine is new, responses to the problems I've had with TC recently, so it's nice to have some dedicated time to break the habits while we both get into shape.

The canter felt fabulous, he was right on my seat and especially to the right, I could engage my hip flexors and feel him sit right down and get more uphill without losing the moment of suspension. I loved that feeling!

He was so good!!

So, the plan from now until we move (hopefully not too long from now!) is this:

Monday: off or long line at home
Tuesday: dressage at the ranch
Wednesday: off or long line at home
Thursday: dressage at the ranch
Friday: off or long line at home
Saturday: lesson or dressage at the ranch or trail ride
Sunday: lesson or dressage at the ranch or trail ride

I can shift those days because the only day I have a set time I have to come into work is Wednesday, so that day wouldn't make sense to haul out on. But other than that, I'm very flexible, which is nice (shout out to my boss for being the actual best).

It does mean hauling out 4x//week, which is a lot and he starts his stomach supplement today so hopefully that helps him, but it does have the bonus of getting TC VERY comfortable with hauling to a place and being ridden, which has been a weakness in the past.

Nose out, baby TC, it took me so long with the clicker to get
him to understand nose out

Fingers crossed that my old barn opens up soon, but this is a very real workable solution that allows me to have my cake (staying at my current barn until we move) and eat it too (being able to work on more than just my bronc riding skills).

If something changes, there are other barns to move to temporarily, but I could really see this working. I'm sure TC would rather live elsewhere, but he seems pretty chill about his paddock and has been *okay* to long line.

I'm just so glad to have my horse back! Onward toward Second level (again, I feel like we've been ready to show like 3 times in the last year and just haven't made it yet).

Immediate Solutions and Future Options

Alright, so we've decided now that TC needs to leave this barn. I'm bummed about it, but trying not to focus on the negative side of leaving the barn. Instead, I'm figuring out where to go. There are some options:

1) My old barn

I've been on the waiting list at my previous barn in the area since December and no one is budging. On Friday, I let the owner know that I would be happy with a smaller paddock (and I'll just hold my breath and make sure he's put on the turnout schedule). Nothing yet but hopefully something opens soon.


2) Trainer's barn

My trainer's barn has openings in the large private dry lots (to use an east coast term, very large paddocks for west coast terms, these things are huge). They are on a hill, which makes me nervous, but hey, he's probably okay. The downside is this: They cost $300 more per month than I'm paying now AND I have to take weekly lessons. Granted, I don't have to pay haul in fees for lessons and would double my lessons, but it's still an additional $450/month or so that I'd be paying (not to mention that it's 3x the drive of my current barn so I'd have to add an increase in gas into that, though it is right near work) and at least at this immediate moment, I don't want to do that.

Remember when he was just a wee baby horse showing at
Training level? All those shows were at my trainer's barn

3) TC's Breeder's Barn

This barn may have an opening, I haven't yet just checked. The upside is that he's obviously very happy there, it's also very inexpensive. They also don't require 30 days notice, so I could put him there and immediately move him to my old barn the second there's a spot without paying double board. Downside is that I'll be taking a step down in amenities. The arena is small and the footing isn't great. It's fine, but that combination will probably make him extra lethargic.


4) This Other Barn I Haven't Talked Much About

I like this barn a lot but TC has only been there once as a 3yo (and was a nut) so I'm weary of moving to a barn where he essentially hasn't been before. But there are mirrors and an actual dressage court, so that's huge. Definitely an option if I can haul in a few times and make sure he's okay.

My old barn, I miss it even more now!

Honestly, I'm feeling very stubborn and just want to move to my old barn and high line TC between two trees with a bucket of water and then encourage people to leave by telling them that the barn is haunted (perhaps by haunting it myself, definitely an option).

Luckily, TC only seems to be really upset at the current barn if he's working, and he doesn't seem tooo upset if he's being long lined with the clicker and lots of praise. So I figure I can long line him there and then haul out to ride.

By moving my trailer to the barn (which I have avoided because it costs extra money and it can live under cover at my parents' place, so that was important in the winter), the difference is really only in how long it'd take me to haul to wherever. My old barn, his breeder's, and my parents' place are all within 20ish minutes. That's 40 minutes extra per day to ride him, so it is even doable on the weekdays if I got up an hour earlier, which is a possibility for a while, especially in the summer. I can probably swing coming into work a bit late on those days too.

Side note, is it weird to buy this welcome mat for my trailer,
not because I need it but because it's true?

My plan is this:

Begin hauling out for dressage rides. Try my parents' place first, since I can go there for free. I heard from my old barn's owner that I could haul in whenever he was there, so I will be arranging a time for that.

If I have to pay for hauling in 3x/week (which I think is the least amount I'd like to do, 3x/week dressage rides, 1x/week trail ride, 1x/week long line), it's still cheaper than moving him to my trainer's barn. Though it is more driving because my trainer's barn is on the way to work.

This obviously couldn't be a permanent solution, but I'm super hopeful that someone will leave my old, haunted barn and a spot will open up.

My blog is off by a day or two, I've already
done this, post tomorrow

When that does happen, I have plans to treat him for stomach ulcers just in case. He hasn't shown any signs of them, but just in case. In the mean time, I ordered a supplement to help his tummy feel better and his noise muffling bonnet is coming so he can wear it while we do ground work at home.

I'm hoping all this works out and that he feels back to normal soon. I really do love this horse and feeling him return to me last week was the major push I needed to bite the bullet and decide to leave the barn.

Clear Solutions in Outside Eyes

When Kate and I got home from the show, I decided to take TC out and try out the ear plugs. Maybe if I could get him more comfortable with the noise, he would at least be more toward the horse I had at my lesson on Thursday.

It took me a very long time to get them into his ears... he doesn't like having the insides of his ears touched and he was looking at me like I was actually torturing him. But I did get them in and when he had them in, he was visibly quieter.

Undersaddle... still buzzy and tense. Maybe (??) not as bad as he had been, but I think by that point I was too far gone. The longer I rode, the closer I was to crying, and when I finally stopped, I couldn't help it. Poor Kate had to witness this. Sorry Kate.

This tail is insanity

The thing that kept me from fully losing it was the idea of having my lesson on Sunday, the next day. I had high hopes that I'd get an outside perspective from someone I have the utmost respect for so I could see the situation more clearly.

The next day, I arrived early to watch Kate's lesson, then hung out with her and chatted (since we didn't get enough of that over the last two days?) until it was time for my lesson.

Unfortunately I couldn't get the ear plugs in, but that's okay, he's not used to them anyway. I took note to clicker train it in the future.

I came into the lesson asking the trainer if she'd mind getting on him to see what she felt. She was happy to do that and so I went to warm him up for her and told her all about the issue. As I picked up the trot, he flung his neck around, which is not exactly normal in the beginning... from there he was an absolute ball of tension and within the first two trot circles, had scooted off with me several times and then flung himself straight up into the air and bronc bucked a few times.

Mine is that one that exploded

I told the trainer she didn't have to get on him, that today was an especially bad day, and that I wasn't sure what to do so it'd be nice to just talk it out with her. As a trainer, this is like, my worst nightmare lesson, the horse is so bad that there's really nothing you can do about it. Honestly, I couldn't tell you what he needed and I know the horse super well, he's never immediately that bad. I probably would have ridden it out, but it would not have been good, it would have been a full hour of trotting and cantering and praising any moment of relaxation and probably ending in a lot of sweat and tears.

So instead of insisting that she help me ride him through it or what not, we turned to talking about the entire situation, with her giving me some ideas of how to manage this issue until we have a permanent fix.

She had some really good things:
- work to get him to respond to my seat more than my hand for the whoa (this was before he exploded, I assured her that he was very responsive to my seat for whoa when he wasn't being tense)
- use my inner thigh to press his neck away from me, my inner thigh should not allow the neck to pop up
- a bonnet with thick ears (noise canceling) would be a good way to reduce noise without the ear plugs, I've ordered one
- TC loves having his forehead tapped, it seems to relax him (this was a technique she used to bring a very externally focused horse to a more internal focus, more on that in another post), so I should look to get some beads on his ear bonnet so that as it flops a bit, it lightly taps his forehead

Look at this tiny bird I found in the barn aisle one day!

That permanent fix I mentioned earlier? Moving barns.

That was the perspective I needed. I obviously thought about moving as the solution after Thursday, I mentioned it in yesterday's post that it was my first thought, but having someone who knows nothing about the situation (and who I respect very much) tell me that this was the clear solution was the push I needed.

This barn is super ideal in a lot of ways. He's in a nice big paddock, it's a full two hundred dollars less than any other location I found, and Kate is there and I could make an entire post about why that's been amazing.

But this trainer was right. This problem has an easy fix. If he isn't like this anywhere else, this is the solution. I don't have to work through this issue. I have to listen to my horse and when he says he doesn't like it at this barn, we are moving.

This but horses

At the end of the lesson, I had gotten off and was petting TC, telling him that I'd do anything to fix this issue, and TC was being all cuddly as if he didn't spend an entire lesson spooking and trying to chuck me in the rafters.

Trainer told me how lucky he is to have someone willing to listen to him and complimented me on my tact. I thanked her and said that I'd do anything to get this fixed for him.


Then I walked him back to his stall and burst into tears. Obviously. I haven't been as tactful as I should have been. Horses don't just randomly change their MO, but my first instinct was that it was a training issue that I needed to fix and I was less than patient about it. I felt like such an asshole, he was telling me "SOMETHING IS WRONG SOMETHING IS WRONG I HATE THIS PLACE" and I was just telling him to get the fuck over it. I hate it when people do that to me, so why did I do that to him?

I talked myself down. It's only been four months. Six of those weeks have been me not riding him (three for mono, three for when I did only ground work).  So much of that time was trying to figure out why he was acting like this.

So much this

It was easy to make excuses for why he was misbehaving! At first he was in the smaller paddock, that could totally have put him on edge. Then our winter lasted for freaking ever, and he hates winter. Then I thought it was his back, teeth, saddle fit, so we did all that. Then I wondered if he'd been a little like this (pushing into the bridle) since last year and he was just struggling to learn to be in more self carriage. Then I thought he was just out of shape. There was always a reason.

But I never stopped trying new things and trying to figure it out, even if I was less patient than I should have been. Well, now we have it figured out. And I'm putting together a plan so that he doesn't have to be ridden at his current barn, more on that later.

Figuring Out TC's Tension

Friday I zipped up to my old town for a horse show! I was pulled out of my "retirement" as a jumping coach, as one of my eventing students wanted me to coach all three phases due to her jumping trainer not being at the show.

Um, she's evented at a higher level than I have, but hey, I can see lines of travel and quality of canter even if I've lost some of my ability to teach actual jumping lessons. And I was also there to swap out her boots from stadium to cross country and put up any jumps she knocked down. I was useful!

The great thing about this show is that Nicole was running it, Peony was volunteering, and Kate was riding in it! So we got to hang out a bit on Friday night and at the show on Saturday.

LOVE this pencil jump, look how the flowers match!

It was such a fun weekend and a good way to de-stress a bit from the confusing bit of information I'd learned about TC on Thursday: that he is totally fine and normal at another barn while being completely buzzy and tense at his home barn.

I started feeling out reasons and solutions with the help of my friends (mostly probably like 10 total hours in the car with Kate over the course of 36 hours). Here were my conclusions as to why:

1) Noise
My barn is very noisy. It is right near the freeway with no sound barrier, so you can hear the traffic all the time. There's also a small airport nearby so we get airplanes fairly close overhead sometimes.

While TC doesn't seem upset by the noise (noise alone doesn't seem to be what sets him off), it could be causing trigger stacking. It's like this: when you're having a good day and spill some milk, you probably won't cry, but when you're having the worst possible day, spilling milk has a way bigger effect and crying might happen over it, even if you know you shouldn't.

The noise might put TC on edge already, then things that he'd normally be okay about, or maybe a little weary of, become horrifying. So that's a possibility

TC or me, you decide

2) Footing
The footing is definitely not as nice as the footing at most all the barns we've been at. I felt like TC's price tag got another zero when I picked up the trot at my trainer's barn.

He has been pretty happy about stepping on whatever in the past, but this footing is kind of slick and he has fallen once in there (on the longe line). He could be nervous about the footing and that he's going to fall, he's been pretty careful about not bucking that much in that arena so I was thinking that might be a sign of him not feeling confident with the footing under him. I'm not sure, but it has been a clear step down (not that it's bad footing by any means) from every barn we've been at.


3) Isolation
TC definitely doesn't appreciate that the arena isn't in view of horses, he's been way more weird about horses leaving the arena at this barn than he has at other barns.

He's also been a little nervous at my parents' barn which is also very isolated. So that could make sense, but he's been at other barns (Greenville for one) where the show ring is quite far from other horses and he's not given one single fuck.

We gave Nicole a ride on the front of the truck
and low key tried to scrape her off on a tree

The solution I came to, I didn't like. Immediately after my lesson with Tracey, I thought there was one solution that fully fixes everything: moving barns. I hated it. I love boarding there, the idea of moving him *again* was awful.

So I decided to exhaust trying to fix those three issues before having to move.

To be continued, tomorrow.

Factory Reset

Yesterday I had my first lesson since April! And I have my next one this Sunday, I feel so spoiled.

As I said in yesterday's post, a three week break didn't fix all of our problems (not that anyone thought it would). Having a good ride on Wednesday and knowing that I had a lesson and could begin to address the issues with a trainer I trusted like Tracey kept me in high spirits.

I mostly wanted to see what Tracey thought about where he was at and how I could fix the tension. She hasn't seen us since October 2017. So much has happened since then!

There's so much weakness in this picture, both his and mine, but
I love how relaxed he is, he's actually got his hind end tucked
under him rather than out behind and tense in his lumbar!

Obviously, TC was a completely different horse than he's been for the last three months. He came out of the trailer happy but relaxed, didn't scream at all, warmed up downright behind my leg, and proceeded to be completely pleasant and quiet the entire lesson.

So it was the most fun I've had with that horse in an arena in what feels like 6+ months and it was also probably supremely unhelpful.

What it did tell me, is that the issues he's having at home are environmental. That's a huge relief. To think that it was my riding (I'm ruining him) or that he was in pain (I'm hurting him) was getting really hard on me, more so than how difficult he's been to ride. So that has given me a lot to think about and I will expand on that in another post.

I obviously have the videos, but they are taking a million years
to process so I can't make gifs yet, will do later!

Looking pretty collected for not being very fit!

For this post, I want to just talk about the lesson! It was amazing! I love me a good Tracey lesson. And as a huge plus, Kate came to watch! She both videoed a bunch of the lesson and recorded ALL OF IT, then had it transcribed for me. She is amazing. It's so nice to have the transcript, although I never want anyone to do that to me as an instructor. If you don't think I'm going to put it in R and do a text analysis, you don't know me well enough. Coming soon.

Alright, so after I tacked up the perfect horse I had stolen from who knows where, we had a relaxing walk warm up (what is this even) while I texted Kate to ask her to grab me some spurs when she got there. Haven't put spurs on since March.

Tracey joined us and wanted to know my short term goals for the lesson and my long term goals in general. I think I surprised her by telling her that my goals all revolved around me enjoying my horse again and that showing was taking a back seat until that happened. She reminded me that this was not always the case.

And that's true, many a time I showed up to a lesson with her saying things like "I signed up for PSG! In less than a month! Are we going to die?" and have her sigh and say "ugh I guess we have to look at your shit pirouettes then" (she didn't say it quite as rudely). It's a new era, Tracey! All I want to do is trail ride and grin my face off while trying to ride my horse's enormous trot. If we get ribbons for doing those things, coolio. If not, well, I'm an adult and if I have to make myself my own ribbons, so be it.

I can't get over his hind end in these stills

I love the way he looks in the bridle here

We started in walk and did quite a lot of it. Tracey harped on me to get TC more forward and to stop doing weird things with my hands. Weird things throughout the lesson included riding with my hands too wide, riding him somehow simultaneously too straight and not straight enough in the neck, and dropping my hands down for no reason. She wanted to get my hands to a better place so that TC could step into the rein a bit better.

I felt bad for TC, as I'd just spent the last three months telling him to slow the fuck down and stop pulling on me, only to turn it around in one day encouraging him to get the hell up in front of me and connect more to the bridle. Sorry TC! Life is confusing for everyone. He got lots of cookies when we got home.

He felt absolutely fabulous in walk by the end of our walk warm up. He was prowling over the ground, aligned, and connected. I was beginning to feel some of the places where I was blocking him from stepping into the bridle and regaining influence over him with my seat. He was lightly connected and never once tried to dump himself off the front edge and leave.

Damn, pony! He hasn't looked like this in so long

So excited I can push my hands forward that I do
so in a completely disorganized manner

Into trot I immediately knew I had my horse back, the one from last year, the one who gets 8s on his gaits. His trot is so freaking cool when he's not a ball of tension. He is so loose and I can slow his tempo down to get a huge amount of suspension that I can barely sit. He felt amazing in the bridle once we fixed my hands, which again wanted to get too wide with my inside hand further back than my outside hand. I could slow my posting and think more about bearing down and he'd take smaller, more energetic steps without plowing into my hand. I felt like I could fluff up the front end just a bit to get more of the fancy shoulder. I could ride with that forward thinking feeling in my hands at all times and never once felt like I had to hold him back with them. Man, this is the coolest freaking horse.

I felt bad because I kept smiling like an absolute idiot even when Tracey was really on my case about some things. Don't snatch the outside rein to turn him, he needs to step into it and bring his inside hind leg more under. Don't snatch the inside rein when I tell you to do that, use your inside leg. Get your hands up, but not too high, bend the elbows, stop sitting off to the right, no, okay now don't sit off to the left. Sit in the middle. There go the hands again. Put your left hip forward.

And there I am just grinning like a fool on my amazing horse who I could swear was also grinning. We were having the best time on the struggle bus.

The best pony, why can't you be like this at home!

He's so blurry but so IFV here, I love it

We spent a lot of time going left because it's both of our weak
sides. Also check out that damn tail!

My grinning stopped when in canter, he started his old bullshit from last year about not being in front of my leg, and when he sucked back he'd just leap and leap and leap. That's less fun. He actually gave me some pretty good whiplash and I'm off to see my chiro before I head out of town today. It's fine though, it's to be expected. He was tired by the time we got to canter, I was expecting him to be zippy as hell and had spent a long three or more months telling him to slow the hell down. So he did. Then he couldn't balance. He figured that being in the air meant he was balanced, yes? So we went into the air.

Tracey essentially wanted me to ignore him and use my calf and seat to push him through the leaping. I can't really tell you what works to quell the leaping. The whip and spur seem to make him leap higher, the seat and calf don't really seem to work at all. The best bet is prevention and while he was being super good, I am not quick enough to switch gears from telling him to slow down all the time to telling him to go forward. So that's on me. We'll deal with it later I'm sure. I kind of hope to deal with it later, but honestly those low rafters do make me glad that he's zippy at home instead of leaping like this!

This was the one I wasn't prepared for, woops

And then we hop to the left

Hind end looks powerful, could be a bit tidier up front

They really aren't very big and they certainly don't unseat me,
he's just being a goofball and wants me to come with him

Overall it was an absolutely amazing lesson. As much as it wasn't super helpful for my rides at home, I am so happy to know that my horse is still in there. On the way home I did the math to see if I could swing boarding there, and it's so not an option, drat. Maybe one day (since it's 12 minutes away from my job).

But knowing it's environmental is a really good thing. So that is the next step. Luckily biomechanics trainer will be coming to our barn on Sunday, so she will see the whole ordeal and hopefully can help us with that. I told Tracey I'd get some video of how he is at home so she can look at it at our next lesson and give me some advice.

Here were my major takeaways for this lesson:
- My hands like to drift apart, I think this is because of how tricky I find him to steer to the left.
- One of the main issues that makes him hard to turn left is that his left hind tracks inward on the circle, I need to push it under him more
- He is fat, okay he is on a diet but he didn't get worked for a while!
- Elbows down and to my side to bring my hands up, not thinking hands up because she doesn't want them that high
- Inside hand perpetually needs to be more up the rein and less taking back, but he needs to step to it, don't give it away
- He is disorganized in canter, he's always been a bit disorganized and it IS getting better, but as it gets more organized, it improves in quality and gets bigger, so we lose organization as it does that. It will take time and he will have a fabulous canter one day.
- He looks great (!!!) and as we come back into work, we'll start adding more collection to his work, this will also take him a long time
- He doesn't look like he wants to ditch me when he's leaping, which is nice of him
- In both directions, I need to keep my right shoulder back
- In both directions, I tend to want to counter bend him OR over bend him, ride lots of straight lines within my circles
- He needs to connect better to the inside rein, I tend to override him on the outside rein in each direction
- My seat tends to shift to the left so I need to put my left seat bone more toward the middle (I over-corrected this in the lesson, woops)
- My saddle is possibly putting me in a chair seat, get that looked at

TC, bro, I can't sit this size trot

Inside hind leg coming under nicely, that's been a big weakeness
for him in the past

Today I am off to a horse show to coach! Then Sunday I'm really looking forward to my lesson with the biomechanics trainer and that's my official last day staying home due to mono. I've never been more excited to go to work on Monday morning!