My Sensitive Flower

TC got a nice light start to the week with a long line on Sunday, a day off Monday, and a stretchy ride Tuesday. My plan Wednesday was to do a good basics focused ride and then he'd get Thursday off before our lesson on Friday. The idea being that I wanted to taper his work to encourage a peak around Friday so I knew he wasn't sore or burnt out as we tackled the changes.

Also hoping to get some help with the canter half pass, the trot
half pass is looking pretty good! 

All went well until my ride Wednesday when TC came out feeling weird. I couldn't pinpoint exactly what I was feeling because I also couldn't get my mental space or my body to comply. I felt all over the place and so did he. My body wouldn't listen to me, my posting mechanic was terrible, I felt like I was falling off to the left, but when I sat right, I couldn't get my balance. TC was struggling with his balance too, and he wouldn't stop looking left and falling right. He also kept stopping, clearly confused or uncomfortable.

I immediately just got off. There's just no point. I thought about backing out of the clinic, but he was sound and Tanya could probably help me get my body in line. Since he wasn't lame, I was certain that it was me, but little things kept creeping through my mind like, what if his saddle is pinching him? What if he's beginning to colic?

I hopped off, grabbed my soloshot, and headed into the barn while petting him and telling him that he was okay. We got to my tack room and I went to take his saddle off... and huh, his girth was a hole too loose. I've had him act weird about his girth before, he very much prefers it to be quite tight.

Nicole pointed out that TC looks super different undersaddle
than he does just hanging out, I think it's because he's such a
naturally low tone horse but undersaddle he really perks up...
unless his girth is too loose

So I tightened it and jumped back on, opting to not set up the camera again and instead head to the covered arena. At least in there I could get an idea of what we looked like in the mirrors.

He felt great! I felt great! I could get my mechanic on him way better and he was so much more balanced and energetic. Turns out that he's such a little weirdo about his girth that he kept trying to get me to fix it for him by stopping and looking at me like "excuse me pls tighten girth thx"

So add that to the list of weird shit TC does, and I'm definitely going to double check the girth every time he acts weird. Fingers crossed that's really what it was and that we're all set to go at our lesson tomorrow!

Dissecting TC's Asymmetries

So I fixed the throughness problem to the right! He's still btv that way, but that's a strength issue and will go away eventually. I'm not worried. Look at the difference from my previous post:

No dip in front of the wither!

Nope, not there

His neck is getting impressive 

Yikes, sir, please don't use that against me

The fix was 1) adding more power to the trot and 2) evening him out on both front legs. He likes to weight his right front and get himself off his left front quickly. As I evened that out, he got way more through because he didn't have that leg to lean on and was using his body instead. Excellent!

He's still struggling to maintain this without being slightly behind the vertical. That friesian neck is killer. As he gains strength, I'll be able to pop him out a bit, right now it just leads to him dropping his withers sooooo pick your poison.

After our latest webinar focused on how to see asymmetries in the muscular development of the horse, I took some quick shots of TC this weekend.

Overall he's in good weight right now, if a bit thin. I like his back
the most in terms of muscle development. He's really well
developed over his loins and trapezius (right behind his shoulder).
I'd love to see more in his neck but this thing is a work in
progress. His hindquarters are really nicely developed, but he just
doesn't have a lot of surface area back there to work with.

There are some differences, but pretty similar.
His left hamstring group is more developed and
I see differences in the outline (left butt cheek
looks like it's affected by gravity more)

He's way more developed in his right pec than
his left, I think that has something to do with the
throughness issue to the right, he likes to weight
that right front leg quite a bit more so maybe the
pec there is due to that. He needs to weight his
left leg more and lift through his ribcage better
when that leg is on the ground

It was a fascinating talk and if you'd like to see it, here's the link! I'm generally pretty happy with TC's development given that this is what I started with:

Totally upside down

A Nightmare to House

TC has been fabulous recently. I think he was just body sore! He's feeling more than himself and celebrated by pawing at the wire fence surrounding his paddock and trying to yank his foot off his body. He just had a couple of small cuts and my barn owner put up electric wire to prevent him from fucking around with his fencing. This horse, he NEVER LEARNS. STOP FUCKING WITH YOUR FENCING, TC!

He will obviously be sold with several hundred feet of no climb wire and a stern warning about what an idiot he is.

Best pony lifting on the right side, more on that tomorrow!

My barn owner asked me to get him some toys so he'd stop destroying the property. I did some research and am going to start with a jolly ball (cheap) and a cone (free). He's had those in the past and didn't do much about them, but what I'm thinking of doing is teaching him to paw and bite them with the clicker so that I can show him how to play with them.

I don't think I can swing a slow feeder or anything of the sort because refilling it is a problem. I don't want to ask the guys to do it, even though I do think that he'd do well with his dinner put into a slow feeder, something to ask if I can't quell his boredom (he literally has an enormous paddock, lots of things to look at, and lots of friends around him, why is he like this?).

Those treat ball things would be fun, but he's clearly going to climb on top of it and either fall off or break it. In those same lines, I'm very tempted to get a large ball for him to play with, but I honestly think he'll try to stand on it and then again, hurt himself. I'd be pissed at myself for getting him a toy that he ends up hurting himself with because he can just learn to take a goddamn nap or practice his piaffe in that paddock.

Half halting I think

Aside from being an absolute nightmare to house, TC has been fabulous recently. His piaffe is really coming along, even though I've backed off to doing it once a week (my trainer is out here on Friday so we'll be doing it undersaddle with her as my ground person for the first time ever). He's confident in it and starting to get rather active and more on the spot. He's got the best piaffe that I've ever trained in that short amount of time. He just *gets* it in a way I didn't expect! What a star.

The changes have been on and off. I think I get a little disillusioned with them when they're rough and then take too much time off from them. I did them last week for the first time in a while and the LR is totally fixed, on the aids, and he's even getting more through while he's doing it. The RL is still questionable. I ask for it and he either bucks into it or he takes 2 extra strides to get strung out and then give me a croup high change. Both are clean and we are totally capable of showing Third with them as is, but it's still something to work on because that's not the end goal.

Looking decent, TC

I think it has something to do with the fact that he loves to weight the right front more than the left. This is my theory for his lower level of throughness to the right AND how he's quick to ram riders into fences on the right side of his body. He just doesn't want to pick that side up. When he's on the left lead then, he's more through and easier to manipulate, plus I'm asking from an uphill gait (L lead) for him to transition (change) to a downhill gait (R lead), way easier than taking a downhill gait (R lead) and asking him to become more uphill (L lead). That's my theory at least. He needs momentum I think.

So the answer is what it's been for a long time, continue to improve the canter in general, with a special focus of throughness and uphill balance on the right side.

Despite me being a little dramatic at times with a very normal progression in putting on his changes, I do believe they are getting better and have hope that we'll be starting our tempi changes by the end of the year!

I've played a bit with his lateral work on the soloshot and the only complaint I have is that his half pass left feels better than it looks. I hate that. There I am thinking I'm doing a great job and then I see it on video and I'm mildly horrified. It's not that bad, it's just that he's lagging with his haunches and all that. Then the next time I overrode the half passes and got the haunches leading on that side... I wish the only arena with mirrors was a biiiit longer so I could do a nice long half pass in there, but we'll make do.

Canter not looking so bad either

So there's the general TC update! He's doing really well in work right now and I'm so excited to have my trainer come back on Friday to help us out. Fingers crossed that goes well!

Fail Friday: Famous Last Words

I think that TC listens to my converations because the other day I told some people that he really hasn't bolted at all this year. Then on Tuesday...

Off we go

Coiling

More coiling

Getting ready to really leave

Back to normal! 

But really, he doesn't bolt much anymore, he just scooted a few steps on Tuesday, but it took me by surprise because (!!) he really doesn't bolt anymore! 

The New Normal

Well, we are five weeks into our official SIP, seven weeks into when the SO and I started our own SIP. That's a lot of time working from home and changing our lifestyle.

I figured I'd do another update as to how life is going, just because it'll be interesting to read back in the future, so sorry for the boring post because I know we're all going through this and this is news to no one. But I do tend to go back through my blog at times and I wanted to continue documenting some of this craziness.

Any craziness that still involves trail rides is okay

The News

The big news this week was that they found that several people in Santa Clara County who died in early February ACTUALLY died from the virus. This all but confirms for me that I was exposed at the Mary clinic. Half of the people there were talking about having a flu that was "the worst flu I've ever had, I've never been this sick in my life" and obviously that didn't stop anyone from coming to the clinic because we're horse people. I remember thinking "oh god, I'm going to get this thing" while I was there and then I didn't and felt super lucky. But there's no way I wasn't exposed, especially given that I was inside the house for the instructor dinner with a few sick people, along with touching people during the hands-on sections. I talked to the SO and he remembers us being mildly sick in February, I didn't miss work or anything, but that could have been the virus. I'm still obviously operating as if I haven't had it and/or have it now, but it's definitely helped with the anxiety from the situation to remind ourselves that we are probably not in danger of contracting it.


Testing Positive

I feel lucky that my family members who tested positive in mid-March have all recovered without doctor intervention. They are all more than two weeks out from their positive test and are allowed to go out again (still SIP, but I mean for groceries/essentials). Knowing that they've already had it has been helping my anxiety a lot. I can at least not worry about them and can focus on the general state of the nation/world. I am still worried that they might get it again or that someone in my extended family will get it, but those are less anxiety inducing worries because they can easily be explained away.


Working at Home

I'm now on week seven of working at home and it's... fine. I definitely find myself being a little less productive at times and a little more productive at times. It's tough to differentiate between my struggles at work resulting from a) the impending doom of a global pandemic, b) the fact that I'm a titch burnt out doing my job, or c) work from home culture not being my jam. Despite all this, I do still have my job, for which I am lucky. One thing that is going surprisingly well is my remote teaching. April is actually looking like my best month so far this year and I didn't teach one in-person lesson. Weird how things work out. It's looking like clinics are starting to happen again VERY carefully, so I'll be heading up to teach in person for the first time in about two months in a few weeks as long as the government doesn't tighten restrictions.

Love this trail

Working Out at Home

On Sunday, I dropped my trailer and took my truck home. The reason was because before coming home with it, I stopped by Tractor Supply to pick up one stall mat for our new home gym. Boyfriend cycles and I ride horses, but both of us need to cross train for those activities. I have a training barbell and a couple of ten pound plates, but we wanted to be able to lift for real, so he ordered a bunch of plates and a real barbell and I snagged the stall mat for our patio. It fits PERFECTLY without needing to be cut. Everything should arrive this week, so we can start actually using it!

We still need a squat rack and there's no way to bench out there (oh boooo... jk bench is my least favorite), but we can deadlift and I can do some weightlifting (I've stuck with powerlifting recently) until we remedy that. In addition, we have some KBs, DBs, an ab mat, and resistance bands, so we're going to be putting together a workout plan. It'll be fun to be able to lift heavy again!


Family Time

Every Sunday night, my dad's side of the family has a zoom meeting set up so we can check in and talk. It's honestly the most I've talked to my extended family in a long time. In addition, my immediate family meets every week or so. Last time we had a meeting, we played some Jackbox games, which were really fun, so we'll be doing more of that.

I obviously haven't seen too many people in person, but because both my parents were diagnosed positive and have recovered, I've been stopping by the ranch occasionally. I don't go in the house or touch anything, but I've gone over there to pick some things up and we always chat in the driveway from about 15 feet away. The best part is being able to visit Rico and their dog, Ruby. Rico is doing very well and enjoying the green grass and all the cookies I give him when I'm there. Ruby is a little rusty on the tricks I insist on training her to do when I visit, so we practice those when I stop by too.


Friend Time

Every week, my friend group has a zoom meeting too! We usually talk for a couple hours and eat ice cream together. It's been SO MUCH FUN and I'm so glad we're doing it. We all live too far away from each other and/or are too busy to see each other all the time, so it's been nice to have some time every week to hang out. I'm definitely up for continuing this even when we can visit each other!


Stimulus Money

I qualified for the stimulus money so it got dumped into my account last week. That was cool. It's just sitting in my savings account right now, which is now back to where it was before the winter (horse trainer life, you know) after that plus the fact that I'm spending nothing right now and saving everything I don't spend. If the democrats get their bill through congress and money begins to come monthly, I have other plans for it. Mostly saving it for a house (hoping the housing market crashes) but also finally buying the saddle I want to buy. I've needed a new saddle for years now, I'm constantly fighting the blocks in my current saddle and the higher up the levels I bring TC, the more I realize that I just can't be fighting a saddle anymore. The plan was to save a few hundred a month until I had enough to get the saddle I want (because the saddle isn't hurting TC or I, it's not urgent), but I'm not opposed to accelerating the timeline.

Best pony

TC Time

I'm still going to the barn and that's been wonderful. I think I'm enjoying seeing everyone at the barn. I typically go in the early mornings and will maybe see one of the trainers there as I'm leaving and she's arriving. Then I sometimes see some mid-afternoon people when I work from home and ride later in the day. But I always miss the mid-morning and evening people. Now, everyone is there all the time! So it's been fun to chat with people I haven't met yet. In addition, TC has been doing well and Tanya is scheduled to come next week for a very careful clinic! So that will be a blast. I'm really excited to get some instruction and chat with her about everything we've been doing.


Immigration Issues

Welp, halting immigration SOUNDS like a good idea. No more people coming into the country potentially bringing disease (or, more likely, catching the disease here). Well, that could be accomplished by a travel ban. But, based on his tweet (oh my god I can't wait to have a president who doesn't randomly tweet shit out like this), the president sounds like he might be halting green card applications for people who are already here. Like the SO. He moved here from Canada for work and has put in paperwork to switch his work visa to a green card. So that's halted. Luckily for us, he is guaranteed to be here through mid-2022. I told him that I'd move with him to Canada if we absolutely had to. We had fun talking about moving to Vancouver. But let's be honest, it's too cold for me there (the other option was Waterloo, so at least Vancouver has better weather) and we both want to stay here. For now, it's a 60 day ban so he's more than fine, but we're obviously both a little concerned that if the election this fall goes a certain way, we'll be moving to Canada in a couple of years. Oh well, at least then maybe I could get my SI injury taken care of without paying so much money.

Just a bit of time on a single track trail

Generally life has been really weird. But at least for me right now, it's okay. I'm obviously missing horse shows and hanging out with friends and traveling and going to work, but I am so grateful that so far, everyone I know who has gotten the disease has recovered and my area is doing extraordinarily well. I hope everyone else is doing just as well, keep on keeping on and all that.

Bombproof Trail Horse

This last weekend, I took TC out on the trails! The trails have not been shut off to anyone at this point. They are really wide and open, there are signs up all over the place with instructions. In addition, Santa Clara County is doing ridiculously well. Our local ERs are nowhere near capacity and I'm sure everyone heard about the results from the Stanford antibody study. So, all this, in addition to TC being totally bombproof on the trails, made me feel comfortable heading out there.

And let me tell you, TC's bombproof nature was put to the test out there! As I drove in, I saw four horse trailers and probably a hundred cars. No joke, the parking lot was packed. That's what I get for going on a weekend. But TC handled all the people really well.

Still love this tree

We just did our normal trail and within the first twenty minutes, we saw probably forty people. I had to stop a few mountain bikers to let them know what "yield to horses" means (it does not, in fact, mean go as fast as you can by the horse), and I tried to get the attention of one jogger and ask her to please walk when she goes by the horse, but she was ignoring me.

Meanwhile, TC thought it was just great that so many people were on the trail, he wanted to say hi to everyone and find out who had treats for him. None of them, TC.

What my horse had to put up with made me feel like his true calling was being a bombproof trail horse, rather than a dressage horse who likes to trail ride. Two bikes came absolutely whizzing down a steep hill and darted between us and a hiker, getting *way* too close. TC just stepped sideways and gave them room.

Then we saw a child, who was very excited about the horse, so he SCREAMED (relatable) and started RUNNING toward us. I had to yell at him to walk, but TC was visibly disappointed when the kid stopped and waited for his mom.

Best bridge crosser

Next up was a man who was just... wandering off the trail for some reason. At first, TC snorted at him, then he saw a dog up ahead and decided the man in the bushes was no big deal, TC likes dogs. The woman with the dog was crouched down taking a selfie with the dog (relatable x2), then saw us and jumped up to get out of our way. Thanks, human, for JUMPING up out of a crouched position in front of my flight animal. TC startled a little, then continued making a beeline for the dog (also relatable).

Then we came around a corner to a whole family taking a break under a tree. Two children were climbing in the tree and one child was beating the ever loving SHIT out of the tree with a branch. No shits were given by the horse, who was hoping we'd stop to hang out with these people.

Our next encounter was a kid who was afraid of us and darted by us behind their parent. Then we saw several more bikes, who had polite riders who all got off their bikes when I asked them to (it was a narrower trail than before). I explained how to deal with horses on the trail and then thanked them for listening.

We passed a TON of hikers, some of which gave us a lot of room, others gave us less room, but everyone was friendly and seemed to be having a good time, so that's good.

Love how green it is out there!

All in all, we probably passed about a hundred people. I tend to go out on the trails to be alone and relax, listen to a book or some music. This was not that. It was still a blast, but more because my life is now so boring that anything but sitting at home is fun. But also because TC was a good boy for all of that craziness!

I think I'll go back out on a weekday to avoid the masses, but it was so much fun to get some fresh air and a change of scenery. I feel really lucky to have such a great trail horse who makes me feel so safe out there.

Soloshot Detective

I've been taking a lot of soloshot video recently. It's been an absolute blessing to have, as there are obviously no lessons or clinics going on right now. 

What it means is that I'm getting a very good idea of what TC and I look like, which is great! But it's also getting me thinking a lot about all the intricate details that I can miss when I pass the mirrors or when I'm just feeling everything and not seeing anything.

One of the main things I've noticed is the difference in TC's throughness from left to right and when pushing off of different legs. Take a look at these screen shots from our ride last Thursday:

To the left, TC is much more lifted through his wither, even in
this quiet trot (his btv-ness will always plague me, friesians!)

Then to the right, he is way lower in the wither, funny enough,
this direction he stays way more vertical with his foreleg

So Saturday, I warmed him up and saw that this is a problem in his warm up, not just in the show trot or his regular collected gaits. To the left even when I'm not paying much attention, he just naturally lifts through his back! Look at this shit:

Not even trying to do anything but stretch and he's giving me
this shit, to the right it's so bad

I'm just dumping the reins at him with this weird hand position
that's now Tanya's problem and he's like oh sure

Then tracking right, here was our warm up:

Dumping onto the forehand and curling a bit

Not curling anymore, but that's a big dip in front of his wither

So then I did some canter work and ended by pumping him up in the trot right (I skipped trot left because why make that side stronger? I need to get the right side to catch up). I focused a ton on getting him to shift his weight to the left and get his right hind under him, which is what I'm thinking the issue is. The results were, well, I was happy with what I saw given that it was my first time really addressing this:

Way more lifted, so much to fix, but way way more lifted

 

That curling, #friesianproblems, but I do really like what I'm
seeing of him lifting through his back. Progress not perfection,
you know how it goes!

Struggling to hold it with his nose out on vertical, but still way
better! 

So if you need me, I'll either be obsessively looking at videos of TC or obsessively applying the things I'm finding while obsessively watching videos of TC while riding TC. 

A Bit of a Blah Week

This week was a bit of a bust on the TC front. He had last Saturday off, then I rode him Sunday and Monday, two bad rides in a row. TC very rarely gives me a bad ride, so I wasn't sure what was going on. I ended up going down on Tuesday so I took him on a walk and letting him roll.

Wednesday he wasn't having it either, but instead of trying to ride through it, I just took him into the covered arena and let him trot around stretching on a loose rein, then did a bit of canter in each direction and called it a day.

TC is enjoying the massage gun, although I
think it might have contributed to the body
soreness he was feeling, sorry bud!

I came out Thursday with plans for another stretchy ride. Then he'd get Friday off and I'd put him back to lightish work on Saturday and then Sunday my thought was to take him on the trails. Just a super light fun week to help him with what I thought was either body-soreness or general mental burnout.

Turns out he just needed a day off and a stretchy ride to be back at it. Thursday he was NOT having it with my insistence that he stretch and he was running off his feet. I held him back from doing too much that day, but it was good to feel him back to normal.

I decided to play with some of the little things that I find myself neglecting in times of development. Things like centerlines, halts, rein backs, corners, and walk work. TC's centerlines have always been good, but in his halt he either weights his left side a bit too much and tips that way OR he doesn't weight it enough and then he does this weird thing where he goes from halt to pawing real quick. Never had that happen before! But it's just repetition. The rein backs have gotten worse since he hasn't been earning himself many of them (which is our go-to exercise when he's bolting), so we did a few of those.

Looking through old pictures of TC because I haven't been
taking many pictures at the barn

Corners are something I neglect quite frequently. I neglect them for a myriad of reasons. One is that my barn usually has them down so that the tractor can drag the court. When I do put them up, I tend to avoid going too deep into the corners because TC is no stranger to jumping out of the court.

My favorite exercise is really simple, you trot into the corner, halt, make a square turn, then trot out of the corner. Repeat a ton, then start to keep leg on as you trot into the corner and keep the trot. Repeat in canter.

We did this a bunch and soon, I had the corners working for me. TC would come in thinking whoa and then I would just turn him and put my leg on. So that was good, I need to do that once a week at least I think.

Best pony

The walk work has been a shit show since his piaffe training began. Now that he's solid in hand, I've backed it off to once a week so that I don't wear out his joints. He doesn't need a piaffe on him for a few more years, Tanya just wanted him to understand the collection better and it totally worked! So now is the time to rebuild the walk.

Pretty much any time I put my leg on unless my reins are loopy, he thinks it means piaffe, so he keeps offering it. So I paired my leg with a very clear we-are-walking seat and hand movement pattern and with my voice, saying "walk on" to him. We got the extended walk okay but the medium walk is still a disaster.

What aren't a disaster are the turn on the haunches, which I'm working to turn into walk pirouettes. Honestly, we could get away with them, they're rather tight, but the ideal walk pirouette is 3-4 steps. I'm obsessing over the fact that TC's first step is a little small, so we do them in more like 5 steps. So now I'm trying to get him to take 3-4 equal steps rather than one tiny step and then 3-4 big steps. This is going to make the canter pirouettes way way easier! The fewer the steps in the pirouettes, the less time he has to spend in his pirouette canter. So we're working on getting him to start the turn quicker.

Baby TC was so cute

So generally, just plugging along over here. Hopefully things go well this weekend so we can jump back into work. And I found out that my barn owner is allowing Tanya to come in for a one day clinic! We are to use phones instead of radio, pay by paypal instead of cash, and it's boarders only, no auditors. Plus all of our normal (lol what is normal anymore) regulations as well. So that'll happen in a couple of weeks, I'm really excited to get a lesson.

Nine Years Old

Last Friday was TC's birthday! He's NINE now, that's so crazy to me.

I was initially not going to do my normal routine of dressing him up for his birthday because it didn't seem worth the risk to go to Target or the dollar store just for the sake of dressing him up. But then Friday morning, I woke up and didn't feel good... not virus related, but I needed to go to the store, I'll just leave it like that, I feel better now.

I sat being all bad feeling and complained to the boyfriend, who said I could switch barn days and take Friday off. I then said "but it's TC's BIRTHDAY..." and then realized "... not that he knows that it's his birthday though" and he reminded me that if I had to go to the store anyway, I could get TC some birthday decorations. So that's how I ended up dressing TC up for his birthday!

I rode him in a sash that says "it's my birthday"
and I think he liked it

Target doesn't have as good of a selection as I was hoping, there were no birthday hats! I think what I picked out was fabulous though, even if TC wasn't a fan...

I think it's the best picture I've ever taken of him

I can't go on enough about this horse, he's just amazing. He's got such a great work ethic, he makes me laugh every day, he's turning into a super fun horse to ride, and he's showing me how much talent he really has in there. We're still plugging away during quarantine, with me hoping to figure out some way of beginning lessons again with my trainer, who is probably not going to be out for a clinic for a long time. We'll see if I can figure that out!

Friday Funny: Pandemic Style

I keep saving memes because I follow a lot of people who are way funnier than I am. Here's my collection this week! What has been your favorite meme so far during the pandemic?

So many eye rolls hearing of millennials on spring break lol

Ugh I wish I could say this but we have a king

 Hope everyone has a good weekend! The weather is unfortunately nice this weekend so I'll be staying indoors being a little bummed, but glad we're still doing well over here.