Piaffe Training & Fixing the Canter

On Friday, I went down to see TC. I wasn't going to, because I was going to go into work and stay there all day for a meeting. But my boss and I chatted on Thursday night and I told him that the best part of my day had been something I ate for breakfast, so he took the meeting I was supposed to go to on Friday and let me work from home. So I slept in, the boyfriend made me a latte while I worked, I put a bunch of plants in pots for our front porch, and then went down to play with TC before teaching.

I just rode TC around bareback and chatted with my trainer friend at the barn about flying changes and how difficult dressage is in general. It's nice to have such a great community of trainers to chat with on a regular basis, even if it's just to have a good bitch session.

Saturday, I prepared for the worst. Like I said yesterday, I honestly thought about not going, but I did want Tanya to help me with his piaffe, so I told myself I could just tell her that I'd deal with the canter issues on my own and that we could focus on piaffe and the trot work. But it ended up being really good, so no regrets.

More beautiful pictures from the ride on Sunday

I parked the trailer and TC unloaded totally relaxed. He's only been to this barn once before and he was a happy camper to be out and doing stuff even as we got rained on a bit while tacking up. I grabbed all my stuff for in hand work and went over to the ring. Tanya had me do a bit of warm up walking and trotting and then we walked over to the outdoor (the rain stopped, phew) with a fence so we could begin his piaffe training officially.

I've played with it a bit but Tanya is adamant that this horse have a piaffe on him by the end of the year, so we are getting serious.

Tanya's way of doing it is very simple and really worked with TC's claustrophobia. I stood in front of him, held a longe line attached to his left bit ring and a whip to use if he blew through me as we walked slowly forward. We had a side rein attached to his right bit ring to keep him straight on that side. Then Tanya came through with the piaffe whip on the hind legs. Our goal was to get two really clear, rhythmic piaffe steps and then stop and praise. We did maybe 15-20 minutes total, most of it walking or resting, and TC was a freaking star! No rearing, like I'd thought we might get to, no blasting through me. I only had to use my whip twice to remind him to give me space.

SO's spare bike that I get to ride! We're looking for one for me
but I refuse to spend too much on it because, and I quote "if I
had $3k, it'd be in my saddle fund" so we're looking for a used one

So I was stoked on that in itself! I honestly thought about being like "thanks! bye!" and heading home. But after seeing how easy the piaffe came to him, knowing that the passage was going to be his easiest gait, and feeling how much his trot has developed over the last month... I was determined to figure out what was going on with his canter.

We headed back to the arena and did a little trot work. TC felt way more under himself after the piaffe work and felt quite energetic too, phew. But then we went into canter and did some collected canter to medium canter transitions and well... it was more like behind the leg to bucking transitions.

I've spoken before about TC's weirdness with the GO aids at the canter, like uh, yesterday's post. I don't know if it's years of being told not to go under any circumstance or just his lack of a quality canter coming out. Either way, he's pretty convinced that leg on and/or whip on = buck. And so, buck we did, until he figured out that I wasn't going to let go of the reins or stop asking him to go forward. At one point, we scattered the people watching from the sidelines because he was kicking out right at eye level. At another point, I heard "don't fall off, Megan!" and I thought HE'LL HAVE TO PRY ME OFF WITH A FUCKING CROWBAR.

It took a while, but it definitely went through and I suddenly had a canter to match his trot work. He was round and jumping up under himself, and most importantly, when I put my leg on, he WENT. Tanya and I discussed the importance of me  not ever letting go of the reins on this horse. She wants him to essentially be dragging me around everywhere. Excellent, not like I spent ten years on a horse who wasn't allowed to put any weight in the bridle because he was so damn heavy, nor did I totally hop on a very heavy client's horse the day before TC. This shit is hard, yo.

Loved this field

We took a short break and then looked at the fancy trot. Holy SHIT this horse can trot. He was so amped from being told he had to go in canter that he WENT in trot. I finally got to see it in real time in the mirrors and wow this horse has some fucking presence. He bombed around the arena with me just clinging onto him. Tanya had just a few things to say, she wants me to be able to compress it a little more to shift his mass back, but without losing the energy and the fanciness. I did it once and lost the trot, then did it again and popped my leg a little bit and the horse gave me more trot than I've ever felt before, it was almost a passage, but a quick one. The air time was insane. And I obviously got no video to share! It's so infuriating that soloshot hasn't come out with their indoor tracker thing, but I'm not holding my breath.

Leaving the barn, I thought again about how well TC is doing in every gait except the canter. His trot is literally a higher quality trot than I had on Rico at Grand Prix. His piaffe is very green but it's coming on correctly with a pure rhythm. His passage is going to be too much for me to sit, I just know it. It's just the canter... We need to fix the canter for him to make it into the FEI levels. Everything else is there, if the PSG was just trot work, I'd be putting on my tails tomorrow. But the canter is going to slow us down unfortunately.

So, time to double my efforts on the canter. I don't want to bomb around in that trot too often because it's hard on his legs, so TC is getting maybe 3-5 minutes of that trot each day and that's about all the trot work I want to do with him. I need to use the rest of the time in my rides to develop the canter, but I think we can do it!