Busy Days

I've been insanely busy lately, and when I didn't think I could get busier, I did. That's been what this late summer/early fall has been all about. But it's good busy. Unfortunately it's been lack-of-blogging-time busy. Sorry for the radio silence.

TC and I heading out from our last lesson, he's the best

In September I taught sixty lessons, three times as many as has been my goal in the past. It's been great. I've met a lot of new people, taken some of them on as regulars in my weekly lessons and as regulars in my clinics. And generally reduced my impostor syndrome.

I really feel like my lessons are getting better, they are certainly better than they were a couple of years ago. I have a new student who learned the canter mechanic in just a couple of lessons. Another one who I worked my ass off to help earn a pony club rating. Another one whose horse had never gone on the bit for her who is now reliably there all the time. My confidence as an instructor is increasing, which is good as my default feelings toward my teaching have always been less than confident.

I've gone bouldering a couple of times and I adore
it, hopefully we're going again this week

I've also been way better about boundaries this fall. I suppose that's the thing about teaching three times as many lessons as is necessary, I can set hard boundaries for clients and risk losing them without panicking. I am not a confrontational person, but I had a client cross one of my boundaries and I sent a thoughtful message about it and had them back down. In the past, I would have just taken it and felt terrible for weeks.

All in all, it's been a really good few months for the business side of my business. I've been able to say no and set boundaries. I've been able to absolutely dump money into my savings and retirement accounts (teaching three times as many lessons aaaand it all goes into adulting, go me!). I've been telling all my friends and family to not let me get freaky about losing money in the winter months.

This year things have gone better for my teaching than I ever imagined they would! I'm even planning an actual legit non-family (I feel obligated when they invite me so I go but I stress about it) vacation this coming year. And in comparison to last year, despite being way busier, I'm way way happier.

Kate and I went to go see Mipso and they were AMAZING

Things have been only okay on the TC front, we had a major come to Jesus moment in my last lesson. Um. For me. I'll expand on that tomorrow. But it was really good for me, really good. And I talked to Kate for probably a combined three hours about it and am now very excited for my future with TC.

Because of how busy I am, I've put TC on a four day a week dressage schedule, with a lot of hand walking and turnout, as well as some longeing on the off days. It's been helping me a lot to not have to ride every single day because I put a lot of pressure on the both of us.

We have a show coming up at the end of October that I've signed us up for. I just opted for one day so that if I can't swing it (I start the L program the week before and have a conference coming up and all kinds of things), scratching won't cost me too much money. We signed up for 2-1 and 2-3. We'll see how that goes! All the movements are easy, it's just this issue I'm going to talk about tomorrow that came up in my lesson about my feel. Dressage is hard, it's beating me down right now.

Went to Santa Cruz on a day off and had a blast

Generally things are going really well recently, even if I've been run ragged by my business and my  office job (this week is accreditation so it's completely nuts) and TC is taking as much of a back seat as I'm willing to let him be in (which is almost nothing, he still gets out every day).

I'm excited to be beyond the show. I want to schedule more trail rides, go see a few other trainers, and just ride him around bareback a bit more before winter hits.

At Risk of Automation

L's recent post on UBI for horse people led me to read a lot about automating jobs, which is one of the reasons why UBI is being talked about so much. Being in Silicon Valley and having dated two software engineers this year alone, I know a lot about what is going on in the big companies, and automation is being talked about quite a lot.

I ran across this article on whether a job in data science is safe from automation. In that article, the author uses a test from a book called The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity that I super want to read, but the test goes like this.

If your job scores less than 70 out of 100, it is unlikely to be automated. My office job is similar to that of a data scientist, but I figured I'd take the test for my horse training job and we'll see if we're going to be getting any robot horse trainers stealing my second job any time soon.

At least my horse job pays for my horse? That is,
until it is automated.

How similar are two days at your job? (0: not at all, 10: very similar)

2/10: I would say that a lot of my job is similar in that it's predictable for me to go to the barn, sit in the same place, and say words to my students, but the lessons are all different. I can't plan in advance what I need to say or what I need to do. I might have to hop on a horse, set up a cavelletti exercise, draw something in the sand, look up a dressage test online.



How often do you have to move physical locations at your job? (0: never, 10: at all times)

8/10: for me personally, I move a lot. I teach at several different barns in the same areas. I'd also count getting on the horses as moving, right?



How many people know of or do your job? (0: almost none, 10: many)

3/10: I don't know how to answer this. Out of everyone in the US, almost none do my job, right? But I'm sure people are aware that horse trainers exist. When I meet non-horse people, they are not surprised that I'm a horse trainer as much as they are surprised that I ride horses.



How long is the training for your job? (0: years, 10: days)

0/10: I'm still learning after teaching for nearly 20 years.



Does your job require repetitive physical actions? (0: not at all, 10: completely)

6/10: many of my actions are repetitive in a way, but not as repetitive as, say, someone pressing the same key over and over again. Still, I get on the horse, I engage the same muscles, I sit in the same way. When I teach I'm usually sitting down, talking, gesturing. All of it is fairly repetitive IMO.



What is the longest time you need to make a decision (0: more than 5 minutes, 10: a few seconds)

5/10: as someone who has done this for a long time, I don't spend tons of time pouring over options to make a decision. Most of the time I just make it and see what happens, you win some, you lose some. That being said, a lot of the time I end up having to correct a decision I made previously. As a trainer you make a lot of decisions.

My next business endeavor

Does your job require an emotional connection to other people (0: absolutely necessary, 10: not at all necessary)

0/10: yes, I do have to talk to people to instruct them, talk to people to schedule, talk to people about how their horses are going.



Is creativity required at your job? (0: entire basis of job, 10: creativity actively discouraged)

3/10: I think this depends on the trainer, because some trainers do just slot all horses into the same program. As someone who is currently riding tricky horses and instructing several people on sensitive mares, I feel like I have to be relatively creative. Plus, riders don't want to take the same lesson 900 times.



Do you directly manage employees? (0: many, 10: none)

10/10: It's just me!



Would someone else do your job in the same way? (0: not at all, 10: exactly the same)

1/10: I do think that there are other trainers that would make very very similar decisions, but they are few and far between. I don't think anyone would do my job the exact same.



Total Score: 38 / 100

Without reading the book, I can't tell how this compares to other industries, but I think it's safe to say that at least one of my jobs is safe from automation!

But really, bring on the automation! Let's just set ourselves up properly for it first.

Wordless... Thursday: Trot Work

This week, the blog has been eluding me. I have had some time to write, but haven't had much to say. I suppose that's just what happens sometimes, I'm not going to force it. For today, I figure I'll just show you some screenshots of the video I got from my lesson. It's all trot pictures just because I haven't gotten that far in my obsessive watching of the video. His canter does look really good though, I'm super pleased with how he's coming along.

Warm up trot, a bit btv and on the forehand but look at how
much his back is coming up

Again his warm up is just a titch btv right now, but I love how
he's learning to reach with his front legs rather than stamp them

So much butt tucking, good boy, TC

Bit further in the lesson, his right hind loves to be under his body

It was so hot there, guys

Tracking left is hard for both of us

Left hind finds it harder to stay under but we're working on it

Can we just focus on that neck, even though he's a titch low in
the poll for now?

Blog Hop: Ten Questions for September

My favorite Southern California resident, L, gave us a few questions this month so here we go!


1. Favorite quirk your horse (or a horse you’ve spent time with) has?


Not sure if this counts, but TC has the best facial expressions!

This one is my favorite when he gets his ears all squished forward
because he's so excited to, say, see that he has two judges

Then this one, I think it's just when he's relaxing but he always
looks like he's wondering what specifically in his life led to
him being owned by me

2. Three adjectives that perfectly describe your horse?

Goofy, hard-working, sweet. 



3. Plan your next ride. What will you do/work on?

Getting my thigh to do what I want it to! Also probably some haunches-in and simple changes. 


4. Have you ever trained an OTTB? If yes, what was the biggest challenge?

I have had many pass through my training barn over the years but never have owned any of them. They're all *very* different but I mostly have had to deal with tension and/or connection problems. Honestly though, lots of horses have those issues. 

I couldn't find a picture of one of the TBs I had in my barn so
look, my parents' ranch is so pretty sometimes

5. Have you ever groomed or worked for a professional rider?

I was an assistant trainer for a few years. It was a good experience! I got to ride a ton, compete client horses, learn about horse shopping for clients, learn how a big barn works, learn what I liked and didn't like about the business, and all sorts of other things. I'm very happy with what I'm doing now, but a lot of good memories in my life come from those times. 


6. Favorite horse and rider combination?

TC and his future amateur who will spoil him like no other. There are a few riders in Northern CA who I always stop to watch ride if I see them riding. I don't want to name names. As for the international riders, I don't honestly watch a lot of dressage if it's not in person, it's kind of boring okay?


7. Have you ever ridden a horse at the beach?

Yes! I took TC there recently, have taken Rico, and have also ridden a client's horse as well. 

We didn't get so far

8. If you could experience the equestrian community (i.e. ride and compete) in another country, what country would you choose and why?

Honestly I love competing here, we have it easy in that I don't have to qualify for riding at specific levels (for dressage). I think if I were to go ride in another country for fun (not for like horse shopping or what not), I'd want to go foxhunting in Ireland. 



9. In your opinion, what is an item of tack that is given unnecessary hype?

There is this one saddle that Devocoux makes that I think is THE STUPIDEST THING. You absolutely 100% cannot have a correct posting mechanic in this. Dear Devoucoux, please stop making this. 

Sorry if anyone owns this, sorry mostly for your
thighs which must be hurting if you ever try to
post correctly in this

10. What was the first horse you rode called? Are they still alive?

I think I rode my mom's pony, Princess, first. She is by no means alive. She died in like 1990. But she was a Morgan pony. Kind of like Sunny! Who my mom now has and loves. 

Halt, Not Stop

On Saturday morning I had another lesson!

With how tough the last lesson had been on me, how hot it was that day, and giving a clinic the next day, I decided to finally tell Tracey what I had been saving for a day where I needed an easy lesson... TC's halts are terrible.

There are a few reasons why they are terrible:

1) I don't work on them
2) He had a bolting problem so I taught him to stop quickly, not well
3) I really don't ever work on them
4) He is just a very front-end oriented horse who wants to get over his chest, so keeping his hind legs under him in general is tough
5) I can't emphasize enough how much I've ignored them

How TC would like to halt: in a heap but looking cute

We started with some trot to walk transitions and she had me essentially kick him back into trot every time he became a bit unbalanced. This led to some really great transitions where he kept himself engaged, ready to trot off, into the walk and then the walk was a much higher quality too.

From there, we schooled the halts, but they were predictably terrible. Tracey said it was fine to teach him to stop, and to still use that for when he's being rude (she says she appreciates a good e-brake for horses that run off in tempis, for example), BUT that there's a big difference between stopping a horse and halting a horse, and TC needs to learn to halt.


We then got sidelined into a conversation about thighs, because I was apparently using too much calf again even though it felt like I had my leg only resting lightly on him. She really wants it OFF of him. So I told her that I was struggling with that. She said I needed more internal rotation, I said that I felt like I was squashing his back with my thigh when I was getting a significant enough internal rotation to get my calf off, so then he can't move as well.

TC is built like a teardrop, so he's very narrow by my hips and gets wider as he goes down. Right where my calf lays is his widest part.

I explained that and Tracey and I talked briefly about how great narrow horses are (because she and I both have narrower builds), then she mentioned that she doesn't really want me into my thigh at all on this horse.

My leg position before Mary

Decent alignment and tone, but not a lot of internal rotation

Ever since the Mary clinic, I've been working on getting my thigh ON horses. I had a habit of riding on my hamstring and riding with my thigh a bit loose off the horses, especially on Rico because he was so lazy.

With TC, it paid off when he was so bolty, but now he's not and it's squashing him. I've ridden plenty of horses who take a lot of thigh, he's just not one of them now.

BUT Tracey wanted me to maintain the internal rotation while getting my thigh off by engaging my abductors (pulls the thigh out) and letting go with my adductors (pulls the thigh in). I tried this for 20 seconds before having to stop because my right hip was immediately fucked up. I stretched it out and tried again.

It made a huge difference in his trot and I could actually sit the Ms quite a bit better. From there, the halts were way easier. Still tricky though, and it's because TC is rather low tone. Tracey said that I'm a very high tone rider, which she likes, but that TC is one of the lowest tone horses she's seen. Disagree, only because I know of a certain potato with her own gravitational force that drags the tone out of you. TC doesn't drag tone out of me as much as he just doesn't have many strings inside of him holding him together. And when we go to do a downward transition, all the strings he does have fly out and he crumples.

More tone in the downward transition, but not so much tone that there's tension where it ought not to be. Dressage is hard.

Actual video of TC doing a downward transiton

Into canter, Tracey seemed pleased with how much I was able to take off my calf and not have him stutter. She liked our transitions in and out of walk, but the downwards are still him landing a bit in a heap.

She said for Second, totally fine. They're clean and not a total heap. Honestly with Rico, I felt like his canter to walks didn't get good until way beyond Second level. They were always clean like TC's, but he also felt like a heap. Pirouette canter makes for good canter to walk transitions, and I keep comparing TC's now to Rico's at PSG+ when he was able to sit way more than TC can now.

Overall I had such a great time! I like getting harped on for the little things that seem to make all the difference. And it was a great way to spend such a hot day, doing light work and learning a ton. My confidence remained for the clinic yesterday, which I so enjoyed, and today I practiced what I learned both on TC and a client's horse (who did fabulously well, although he wants more pressure on my thigh, they're all so different).

Self Carriage in Canter

We have another lesson tomorrow and we've been working hard on everything from our last lesson. As I mentioned earlier this week, we found a nice hole in the canter work.

A lot of what are holes now are things I deliberately did to handle TC's behavioral issues. This is an example of a big one. TC went through a nice long phase where he bolted quite a bit, then all last year we did a lot of leaping and bucking. It was very much in my toolkit to get him used to the leg. You're supposed to put your leg on an energetic horse and keep your leg off a lazy horse, right?

Over the years, it paid off. He hasn't been able to completely dislodge me and the bolting/bucking has been reduced to a minimum in both intensity and frequency. Yay for perfect ponies.

The barn is beautiful in the mornings

However, part of self carriage in the gaits is not having to keep the leg on every stride. It's not nagging to keep him going, but it is present. That's bad. It's gotten to the point in the trot where I can mostly drop my aids and he keeps going. I thought we were headed that way in canter but then I realized that my calf has to be on him. After that, it's just spur and the whip that makes him buck, I need more of a spectrum of aids.

So on Tuesday I set out to have a really good ride focused completely on my leg aids, both how I'm using them and how he's responding to them.

Bench sniffer

We started with walk-halt and halt-walk transitions. I wanted to have an easy exercise to praise him like crazy when he responded to my leg. I decided to break the leg aid down into three separate aids to use, I guess four if you count the whip, which Tracey says not to. I started in halt and put just my calf on, Tracey wants him hot enough where I just have to tense my calf muscle to get him to go, but like... no thanks, I want to be able to twitch a leg and not have him leave the universe.

After the calf, I went to a bump with the side of my leg, or, for lack of a better word, I kicked him. But no spur, just a bump. Tracey told me to teach him that when my leg comes off is when he has to go, and she does this with a bump of the lower leg against her horse. I like this because it means I can forget to keep my leg on and my horse will stay in front of my leg - antifragility, hell yes. After that, he got a poke with the spur, although I want to refine that into maybe three separate spur aids: rolling up his side, fluttering the spur at him (future piaffe aid), and the skewer (for staying on bucks lol those spurs have saved me more than once). And of course, after that was the whip that I'm not allowed to use but still carry around for some reason.

I really never even got to the spur! He figured out the kick real quick and was totally happy to go forward when I put it on. He also began to anticipate it when I took my leg off, which not only kept him more in front of my leg, he started to offer way more self carriage while shifting his mass back. Almost like... if the hind legs stay under and active... the horse can... you get it.

Into trot and he felt GREAT, I did some walk-trot transitions, working on the same thing, then some shortenings and return-to-workings (Tracey says no more medium trot so we do no more medium trot). Lots and lots of repetition, at this point it was more for me than for him, I needed to make sure I was absolutely accurate with my aids every single time to drill it in there.

Time for some wandering

At the canter, he again figured it out quickly. And I immediately remembered why I don't ride him like this though. His canter is big on its own, but then it was absolutely on the brink of being out of control, or at least that's what it felt like at first. No wonder I wanted to hold on, and now I couldn't. I reminded myself that the horse was trained, but also gave myself a little bit of a break on not working on this until now, earlier this year this would not have been possible to work on.

But he held it together super well! He got more and more responsive to my seat and it just took the occasional bump with my leg to get him back under himself. From there, the medium canters DID exist from a squeeze of my calf thank you very much, as did some mostly decent canter to walk transitions when I managed to ride them correctly.

After cantering, his trot felt insanely good! I was super pleased. His trot work has been coming along, but it's been tough to get him to exactly the place where I want him so that I can stop focusing on the quality of the gait and start riding other things. This was that trot though, it was so easy! I just sat there (wheezing because omg his trot, I could do crunches and planks for ten years and still not be able to sit it easily) and let him move under me, just got out of his way. We got a really nice compliment from one of the riders in the arena when we were trucking along like that.

This perfect horse thing won't last long

I did school a bit of the haunches-in, mostly in walk again trying to get him sensitized to the aids I'm going to be using for it. It felt terrible as it always does, but the mirrors helped validate what I was working on. I was sitting more to the inside, I had his shoulders pointed forward rather than out (it's not shoulder-out it's haunches-in), and the angle was correct. It's going to take a while to get him comfortable in it, primarily due to my aids being a mess, but I'm determined.

Overall it was a fabulous ride! We had a nice long walk around the ranch to celebrate too.


I was walking him out down the back driveway where a bunch of cars were coming in for therapy (there's a handicapped riding school for kids at my barn). Everyone was so polite, waiting at the end of the driveway for me to walk all the way down it, but I kept waving people in. TC doesn't care about cars, he's lived at like three barns now where there were cars right by his paddock.

One family was reluctant and I kept waving like please don't be late to your class, TC isn't going to do anything. They finally came down and as I passed, stopped to say hi and I told them that TC was fine with their car. They then told me that they come down twice a week for therapy and that TC is their favorite horse on the property and they visit him each time. TC was just pleasantly looking in their car being all sweet like and I told them to look in my tack trunk and they can give him a cookie each time they're there. I said that he was very gentle (he is shockingly gentle with cookies and kids) and that he'd appreciate the attention.

I think I'm going to get some special cookies to put in my trunk and leave a note for them (I want to describe how to get him to smile) just in case they take me up on it. Life can't always be made easier with new leg aids but it can be made easier by giving a sweet horse some cookies and petting his very soft nose.

Eponia Frost

So fifteen and a half years ago, I was working at a tack store, like you do when you're a teenager and you ride horses, right? And I pretty much spent everything I made at the tack store... at the tack store, again like you do.

I was riding Larkin at the time in a very ugly bridle I'd dubbed the "trash bridle" because I literally found it covered in this green goopy stuff in the trash. I cleaned it (obviously) and rode in it. It even went to (and passed) a pony club rating!

Working at the tack store, I got to see nicer tack than my very cheap dressage saddle (that I'd likely get launched out of now given that it had no blocks and the seat was horrifically uncomfortable) and my trash bridle. It's one thing to see a nice bridle in a picture and it's quite another to put those bridles on a display and feel the quality of the leather.

The Vespucci

I fell in love with a Vespucci dressage bridle, so I saved my pennies and bought it with my employee discount. I took excellent care of it and it lasted me, well, fifteen and a half years.

I was looking at it the other day and realized that this thing was on its last legs. I mean, I already knew that. I'd gone through several sets of reins already. The noseband broke so I had swapped it out for my double noseband (which was newer at... ten years old). The crown piece had been chewed on by my trainer at the time's young horse (who she had.. nevermind, it's not worth it, but like, of all places to tie your horse, woman).

In all this time, it had looked ragged but not unsafe. Now it looked unsafe, the stitching was coming apart, it seemed to be disintegrating at some of the stress points. And on Rico, who cares, right? I can stop him even without a bridle. TC though, with TC I want a very strong, sturdy bridle that is 110% not going to break if I have to stop him quickly.

Bridle not necessary on the best horse

I'd already talked about buying a new bridle for several years and I finally had a good enough reason to bite the bullet and buy one. The timing worked out perfectly as I got a retro from my old job into my bank account last month. I did the adult thing and put the money in retirement and in savings, save for money for a bridle.

I knew exactly what I wanted because I had already looked at Austen's Eponia Gatsby and Peony's Eponia Whatever (not sure which one she had, I think the same one as I got). I opted for the Eponia Frost. It's the same as the Gatsby but with a different browband.

New bridle! 

See what I mean about the noseband? He has
a really thick nose I guess

So far I really like it! I'm not sure if it will last fifteen years like my last one will, but the leather feels really good and it fits TC very well given that his face is a bit weird. I think I want to eventually shift the crown piece back a bit on the noseband. We'll see.

I don't hate the browband even though I am extremely partial to v browbands and wanted to immediately change it. It does look really good on him!

This is my first big tack purchase in about ten years (when I bought my double), and I'm super excited about it!

A Tough Lesson

This last Saturday, I had a lesson! My main goal was to go over the counter canter and the haunches-in from 2-3, but we only ended up doing one of those things.

Poor TC got spooked pretty bad about five times in the first ten minutes of us riding - scary field workers, fireworks going off nearby, a blower, a horse exploding behind him on the longe, and a tractor (by that point he was kind of afraid of everything). That's totally fine and things like that sometimes happen. Luckily TC has come so so far and when we got to work in the arena, he was a bit more distracted than usual, but he wasn't tense.

He looks SO DORKY here, my god, TC, look less like a dressage
horse okay?

I've been fairly fatigued recently (both mentally and physically, can it rain already so I get a day off?) and definitely did not ride my best, but again, that's okay, it's good to know where I'm at when I'm not at my best. It's not great.

She had me pick him up and I immediately did a really shitty walk to trot transition for no reason. Then I could not get my hands organized, again, but this time it was in a new way. I had taken the last two months of lessons to heart and stopped pulling on the left rein. I stopped doing everything else with it too.

So she wanted me to actually connect that rein, so I snatched at it, dropped it, snatched again, and so on. Then, to top it all off, I somehow decided that snatching the right rein would help, so I stopped moving him into it and he fell inward against my left leg, which I thought was a good place for him to be, so I didn't do anything about it.

We did get him all situated and actually by the end of the lesson, got some really nice compliments on the quality of the trot! When we first began lessons again, Tracey had all kinds of complaints about the quality of his trot for Second level, and by the end of this lesson, she was really complimentary of where it's at for the level.

On Sunday morning we went for a walk and we
found a mound to back up! 

After working on the quality of the trot, I went sitting and we started the shoulder-in. The left must have been fine because I don't remember what she said. Probably that he needed to step off my left leg better. And I remember being told that my 10m circles were too big in the second half though.

The right was difficult, I just don't want to use my left thigh to do anything, really (not even squats). So I've substituted my right rein and have decided to pull that straight back. Turns out, the movement isn't neck-in, so I got told to turn him more from the wither. Once we made that correction, Tracey was super happy with the shoulder-in, so that was great!

The haunches-in was a disaster. But Tracey said that it was equally a disaster in each direction, so that's fabulous. I, like I did ten years ago and like every rider I've ever taught it to, want to sit to the outside in the haunches-in. You need to sit to the inside. I don't like that. I don't want to do that. My idea of perfect alignment in haunches-in is hanging off the outside of the saddle, dragging my toes in the arena footing.

The other issue in haunches-in was my insistence that angle and energy are somehow the same thing. Tracey would say "the angle looks great, but he needs more energy so a-" and then instead of hearing what she wanted me to do (add inside leg because the impulsion in the haunches-in comes from the inside hind leg, makes sense), I just shoved my outside leg further back and asked for more angle, which, consequently, had the effect of slowing him down more, which made me, you guessed it, put my leg back further to get more energy. We did end with some okay haunches-in, and Tracey confirmed that he's just green, which means that it is going to be awkward for a while. Eventually the angle will come from a slight half halt on the outside rein when the outside front leg is in the stance phase.  That day is not today.

He's really leaned out (vet says he is fine), I upped his grain

Into canter and the real shit show began. Tracey had me start with a walk to canter transition and TC ignored my aid three times in a row for an unknown reason. By this point I was a little raw from being tormented by haunches-in. So I got frustrated. I kind of kicked him into canter, finally got a canter, came back to walk, and got a walk to canter.

We had discussed riding some medium canter on the circle. Tracey wants me to school him there to keep him  under control vs schooling it down the long side and having him porpoise. Totally great idea, definitely going to school it like that.

Unfortunately TC doesn't really get medium canter unless it is down a long side, I just don't school mediums on the circle even though it's a staple in my teaching. <--- that's a really annoying thing I do, have you noticed?

So she asked me to do a medium and I asked TC to do a medium and TC said no. And what do you do to horses that refuse to go? Whip tap. And TC exploded, because he doesn't EVER respond to the whip at the canter without bucking. You do not hit the horse in the canter. I know this, and yet I still do it. For no reason. I pay for it every time. Do not hit the horse at the canter.

What transpired was the following:
Do NOT hit the horse with the whip at the canter (THIS IS BRAND NEW INFORMATION)
The medium aid NEEDS to be a squeeze with the calf
You cannot use your calf when your calf is already clamped on due to the phrase "leg off the lazy ones, leg on the ones that randomly explode with bucks and/or bolting"
Not only do I have terrible hands, I also have terrible legs. Hows my seat? Can we just say good so I keep some of my dignity?


It was a TOUGH part of the lesson. I felt like I was going to cry at one point (this is more the mental exhaustion I've been feeling since essentially doubling my workload for the last two months). Every element was just HARD. I kept having to get my calf off of him, but prevent him from breaking, and not hit him with the whip. Also my left hand was blocking him, then allowing too much, then blocking. Then I didn't keep enough left leg on, but keep your calf off, but get his ribcage right. Then my seat was doing weird shit biomechanically so I needed to use it better, but not that much because he'd break, but why are your legs clamped on? Okay go medium.

Pretty morning light

But it's fine, it's totally normal to have lessons like this. I was bummed but only because it was hard and I can see the distance between where we are at now and where we want to be more clearly now and it's a bummer. But the should-be's evaporated a long time ago. Sure I should be better at Second level because I'm a Grand Prix rider. Well, too bad. I'm not. Oh well. Say what you will about that, maybe it makes lower level riders feel better that someone who has competed at such a high level also struggles with these things.

But anyone at my level, above, or below pretending that everything is super easy is lying. Dressage is hard. At all levels. For everyone except Charlotte Dujardin. I see my trainer having lessons on getting a horse straight and forward while I take lessons from her on getting a horse straight and forward while I also teach my students to get their horses straight and forward.

Even though it was really hard on me, I'm excited for another lesson soon to further drive this stuff home. We're aiming for eventual 70s at Second level, shit's going to be hard.

Seeing the Chiro

TC saw the chiro vet on Tuesday last week!

I forgot how brilliant she was. She asked how he was doing and I basically just said good and gushed over how much he'd calmed down and how fun he was to ride. Looking back, it'd probably would have helped her to have me tell her that his left hind was the problem child. But you know, priorities.

She had some really good feedback about how he was looking that gave me a lot to think about.

More trail pictures because I have nothing else, I need to take
more pictures in general

First of all, she hadn't seen him in a couple of years (we were in another area and then she got hurt) and says that he's filled out a TON. She liked his weight and put him at a 5.5 on the body scale. I tend to have him more like a 6.5, but I do like that he's a little less heavy, he's a big horse and the less weight down his legs, the better. She didn't want him to lose more weight though, so I'm going to put him on some alfalfa pellets I think. Just some more calories because his work is getting significantly harder.

Muscle wise, she says he looks great, he's really well muscled and the only spot she thought he looked a little scrawny was the base of his neck. I told her 1) he's really only been back to full work since July and 2) that's a known problem area and we're on a really good program to get him stronger. She said given he's only been back to work for two months, he looks amazing!

She asked what he was on supplement/medication-wise and I told her. She said she wanted to check on the vitamin E I'm feeding him because she wants him on more of it. She says the horses that struggle wtih coordination often get better with a lot of vitamin E, so I'll up it with her help soon. She also thought giving him adequan this fall is a good idea. I also think that, but I also got wind that Part 2 of the L program is going to cost me $2100, sooooo we'll see.

Wasn't too sore from this trail ride, which was quite long

Onto the chiro itself. He was out in his poll, which he typically is. And he was also out in his neck. She said that turning his head right must have been tricky and I admitted that he honestly feels pretty supple to me sooo yeah. He definitely does like to throw his head left though. She thought his neck in the walk looked less swingy side-to-side than it should have been.

In his back, he had a couple of ribs, but the main issue was his pelvis. The left side was tipped forward and downward while the right was tipped up and back a bit. She put it back where it belonged and it immediately looked better.

From there, he was pretty done and so she did some acupuncture and he visibly relaxed while she did it. I don't know much about acupuncture but it's not like it's extra money and he seems to like it quite a lot. And whatever TC wants, he gets (within reason).

It was beautiful but I am glad I work in air conditioning lol

When she was finished, she showed me a cool psoas stretch but unfortunately it requires two people to do it. I'm sure no one wants to come to the barn with me at 6:30am to do it with me every morning. But she did say that his psoas is probably VERY tight all the time, it's common in dressage horses to get it tight and then to feel restricted behind. So, given his conformation and career, he's likely to have a fucked up psoas muscle. But when someone is around, I'll be asking them to help me with it for sure.

Overall, it was so good! She said he wasn't bad enough to need a chiro appointment regularly, so I figured once a quarter was probably good enough, maybe taking winters off because #horsetrainerlyfe (my budget is going to shrink significantly due to rain cramping my style).

Happy ears

I rode him the next day and just did a stretchy day. Then it was back to full work on Thursday, Friday, and a lesson on Sunday! More about that tomorrow.

A Compulsion for Solving Puzzles

So, I play a video game called Opus Magnum sometimes. And when I mean sometimes, I mean very rarely because I'm fairly busy right now. But I do really like it and made time for it on Labor day.

Opus Magnum is a puzzle game. You're an Alchemist tasked with making machines that create certain chemical elements. It's a really beautiful game and is pretty simple to start, then it gets more and more complicated, like most games do.

The point of the game is to obviously create the chemical you need to create (or whatever the story line asks you to do), but it also measures you on how cheap you can make it (more complex machine parts = more expensive), how much surface area you take up, and how efficient (how many turns) it is.

One of the early levels (not my solution btw) 

Jesus Christ I'm not looking forward to this one

I spent what felt like WAY TOO MUCH TIME on a level that at first didn't look too difficult. I'm far enough in the game to know that it's getting hard now and that things sometimes look easier than they actually are and it's not til I'm 40 minutes into any given level and have started over at least five times and stared at it, wondering if it's even possible, that I realize how hard it really is.

Then I finally finish the level and it's not as pretty or as efficient as I'd like it to be and I'm stuck with either redoing the level to see if I can make it more efficient or just moving on knowing that the next level will probably go about the same way.

And I had this moment like... oh god this is just like dressage... and then I quit the game and had a long moment wondering what it is about activities like this that get me mildly obsessed with them (I have several other video games like this, am obsessed with crosswords, and my job is basically all problem solving). Then I went to bed and went about my day thinking about the game and how much I wanted to get back to it.

A relatively simple solution (again not mine)

If you were expecting a longer post detailing something I learned about myself or something I learned about dressage as a whole, you'll be disappointed. I did not learn anything, I merely discovered another outlet of mine for this weird addiction to solving puzzles that don't even make me feel satisfied when I solve them.

I have no time to learn anything from this compulsion, there are more puzzles to be solved in the world. At least I have a hobby that satisfies this addiction AND gets me outside (thanks, TC).

Progress with the Counter Canter

TC and I had a great couple of rides last week working on some Second level work. We're now about six weeks out from the last show of the season and I'd really like to feel ready to sign up for it. 

Looking at some garbage cans across the road

On Wednesday morning I was sitting super weird. I rode TC and noticed it, and Wednesday mornings I also ride a *very* sensitive client horse so I quickly shifted my focus and did a more stretchy ride while working on my biomechanics. It was a good ride, just not much to write home about, but worth mentioning lest you think that all of my rides are working on things other than getting myself to sit on my right seat bone. 

Thursday was when we really looked at the Second level stuff, which is coming along. 

I'm taking advantage of having a court (and having the guys ALWAYS watering/dragging the covered with mirrors when I want to ride) to practice movements and geometry (lol one of my kids told me she hadn't taken geometry yet when I told her that her circles were absurd, nice comeback). This day, I tackled the counter canter. 

No covered arena riding for us in the mornings,
oh well :( 

The 2-1 counter canter is super easy, it's the same as it used to be (across the short diagonal from the corner, then hold it down the long side and transition at the corner letter) BUT it now is a trot transition rather than a walk transition. No complaints, I think it makes the test way easier than 1-3, which is good because Second has been such a big jump in the past. 

The biggest challenge was not botching the canter to trot transition. Those are rough on TC generally for some reason and I have yet to smooth it out. It's really dumb, we'll fix it, nothing like a Second level pattern to point out your Training level issues. 

Other than that though, the pattern rode really well, although I immediately reverted to weird left hand behavior on the right lead, so I'm going to go into my lesson tomorrow with that request. 

Still thinking about how pretty it was on that trail ride last
weekend

I didn't want to look up the 2-3 pattern but I was 99% sure that it was the three loop serpentine with no simple changes. Either way, a good movement to ride to solidify his counter canter work. And it turns out, I was right.

The first time I rode it, TC saw a bird shadow and all was lost. Sigh. I thought he'd be over them by now but I guess not (earlier in the ride he pounced on a leaf and I laughed at him so we're not the epitome of maturity over here, let's just be clear). After that, it felt really good! Solid enough where I don't think we're in danger of breaking and precarious enough where I don't think I'm too screwed when I go to put changes on him. 

Best gray nose

We schooled some of the trot work after that (and after he tried to lawn dart me because he was super amped) and that all felt great too. His shoulder-in feels way easier and his medium trot is terrifying getting bigger. 

The medium is tricky though, because if I ride it at 80% (which is what I tell my riders to do for development - never ride at 100% of what your horse can do because they're not going to develop properly, it's like lifting your 1RM deadlift all the time and wondering why your back hurts), I still lose his hind legs. I almost have to school it at 50-60% of what he's truly capable of to get the quality (uphill tendency and hind leg activity) that I want. The more he goes (and man can he go), the more he unloads the hind legs. 

I don't like schooling it a ton because I think it's not great for their legs and it's only two movements in the test (worth as much as ONE walk pirouette), but it is worth it to get a good one on him. 

Now I'm just reaching back into the archive, I really need to
take advantage of having a phone with unlimited photo storage

Generally I am super happy with where the movements are currently. I think right now there's no major weak points in that we wouldn't be able to get through the test. I do want the simple changes to be more clear and through, and honestly just easier. I feel like I can get them clean in the test, but they'll be clunky because he isn't stepping under. Granted, they're only on the short diagonal and only in the 2-3, but still. Bleh. 

I also want to get the haunches-in more solid for the 2-3 pattern. I haven't schooled it much and I keep schooling shoulder-in instead of haunches-in and I need to stop defaulting to that movement. So that's on my list too. 

Other than that and the mediums (which I have to be careful about going for in the show ring because he's such a dingbat, I doubt I'll trust him in the extended canter for another couple of years), I feel pretty good! Everything should be solidly 7s except some of the canter work and the mediums, and those should be made up for by the 8s I'm hoping to get on the walk pirouettes... although I could ruin them before then. 

Getting ready to erase some of this stuff that I
think has been there for months... 

Fingers crossed I leave my lesson tomorrow with some good homework (I know we will) and more confidence about this show. I'm still feeling like showing 2-3 is incredibly daunting. That's one test below Third level and we're really not schooling a ton of Third level just yet. This winter we sure will since it might be lead change time, but for right now, we're very much going to be showing at the level we're schooling, yikes.