Hopefully It's Me, Part 1

I was debating whether to go to my lesson on Friday because of how TC was going. But I ended up doing it anyway so that I could get non-crazy eyes on the situation.

Tanya is a very no-bullshit person and listened to me, looked at his condition, and told me not to throw too much money at him because she essentially said Megan, he's a third level horse, not a Grand Prix horse, and he's an off breed, not a warmblood. Initially I was a bit concerned, but I made the decision earlier this year to commit to one trainer and she's it and all her horses look fabulous and score well and her riders ride beautifully. So I sucked it up and gave TC a pet and told him that this would be the one ride before the chirovet came out that he'd have to work his ass off.

Making sure the camera is getting his good side

And sure enough, TC and Tanya worked together through me and by the end, TC felt absolutely fabulous. It was as if TC was like "yeah she's being really ineffective and I'm trying to tell her to get her shit together but she's just a mess right now" and Tanya came in like "I can see that, let me see what I can do to get her going a little better for you" because a quarter of the way through the lesson, TC stood up straight, came way up through his back, and was having an absolute blast carting me around the arena while trying to pounce on bird shadows. Meanwhile I'm like "but do you think he's lame" and she and TC probably laughed together about that.

Before I go further, I will tell you all that I'm keeping my chirovet appointment and my regular vet appointment, I'm also definitely still revamping his nutrition (Tanya told me about a specific muscle builder - body builder? Haven't looked it up yet) and for SURE I need to figure out the saddle. Tanya told me that my thigh was too long for my saddle and it isn't doing me any favors. So I'm still listening to my gut, but the results of this lesson showed me that at least 50% of what is going on is me. That's awesome. I honestly hope I'm 100% of the problem, that's the cheapest solution.

Looking like a fancy pony

We covered a lot of ground, but here were the highlights:

Walk Work

Wow, turns out that not putting my leg on in the walk is NOT a solution to TC's jigging when I put my leg on. She thinks it's two issues: one is that he just simply isn't in front of my leg in general, two is that he will not step laterally off my leg. Basically his response to any leg in walk is just to jig, prompting me to take my leg off. By the end of two walk sessions, I had him more connected in walk than I'd ever felt!

Quality of Trot

This led to Tanya telling me to legitimately get a bucking strap to hold myself in the saddle if I needed to, but under NO CIRCUMSTANCES was I to slow the trot down or make it ANY easier for me to ride. Great. But let me tell you, this horse can fucking trot.

So, the trot work has been tough recently for us, it's where I see the most issues. What it feels like to me is that he's plenty forward and pumping him up through his back means that he just runs on the forehand, leading to him dropping his wither and curling in the contact. Tanya had me not put him as low in the poll, she said that was causing the wither drop (vs I was hoping he'd stretch into contact and then I could pick him up). Instead, she wanted him to step into the contact, however ugly it looked, and then we'd pump him way up from there. Contact first, then what I initially thought was energy but then realized was impulsion. He has the energy, but it's not directed anywhere, so he drops the wither. 

Such cute photos the SO took on Saturday

Tanya compared his topline to a long skinny water bottle, she said that if I kick him forward in a level balance, the front of the water bottle will fill with water and then drop down. If I first pick him up into an uphill balance, the water stays in the back of the bottle, weighting the hind end, and then I can add power without losing him onto the forehand. It worked. Really well. So well that on Saturday, I was very sore.

Trot Lateral Work

He needs to be way more supple laterally, like I mentioned before. His lateral work is high quality, with Tanya saying "well that's an 8 for sure" to his shoulder-in and half pass. The half pass right is absolutely perfect but the half pass left gets a bit underpowered at times and he falls through his left shoulder, so he loses the angle. To fix that, she had me open my outside rein to help show him that there was room for him to stay up and out to the outside rein and reminded me that half pass involves a lot of inside leg. My solution in the past had been to basically over bend him to the left and she reminded me to keep his ears focused on where I was aiming the half pass.

The shoulder-in was picture perfect after a couple of schoolings. Around this time in the lesson, I decided that I needed to only go to shows that Tanya was going to, because I genuinely think that she can add 10 percentage points to my score. When I schooled the tests by myself, I felt like they were solidly in the 60-65% range. With her magic, it's definitely over 70%.

Love this horse!

I wrote this whole post out with all the canter work too and it's shockingly long, so tomorrow I'll talk about the canter work and what I took from the lesson overall!