My Horse Isn't Green Anymore

After the show, I gave TC Saturday off (and ran out to teach a clinic), then rode Sunday and Monday, then he got Tuesday and Wednesday off because the SO and I ran up to the mountains to get away from society for a second (more on that later). Then on Thursday afternoon, we had a lesson with Tanya!

Maybe not the best scheduling of my life, I really should have put the lesson on Friday, but it was a weird week.

I was a little concerned when I got to the barn and it was really windy, then more concerned when I decided to put TC in turnout and he and the horse next to him exploded. I took him out and flew him like a kite as we walked around the property a few times, then I put him back and questioned my life choices.

But TC is just the best, man do I love the 9 year old year, so when I got on him, he was energetic but ready to work rather than ready to launch me.

He's so cute

Tanya and I chatted about the show, I told her we didn't get very many comments about the movements themselves, those were all solid except for some green mistakes, but that we got a lot of comments about being short in the neck. I told her that I just wanted to fix that during my lesson.

My goal for comments is to avoid any "red threads" going through my test. The same comment over and over and over again. I'd much rather have small critiques of movements, such as him needing a little more angle in his shoulder-in or a little more bend in a half pass. Something that isn't "there's a basic that's wrong here and let me tell it to you 19 different ways."

Being a huge dork about biting my foot

She had us warm up and pointed out that I don't quite get him committed enough to the bridle, he comes out with just a tiny bit of push back that definitely comes out later on when we're doing more challenging things. I wish I had my soloshot charged that day, because I don't know what he looked like when we got him where she wanted him. He felt a little low and probably was a little too deep, but he did feel more committed to the bridle, so that's good.

From there, we jumped into some leg yields and Tanya found the hole. In lateral work, TC does not remain committed to reaching for the bridle. This makes SO much sense. The 3-1 starts with lateral work, so from the get go, we were retracted in the neck. The 3-3 starts with a medium, so that got him more reaching and that's probably why I felt like he was more rideable in that test.

We worked really hard to maintain the reaching to the bridle in the lateral work and we finally ended with some really good shoulder-in in each direction with him reaching forward and downward to the contact while letting me position him.

Hi this looks delicious

In canter, we played with the same thing. Tanya had me put him into a medium canter and noted that his outline looked the most correct in the medium. Then when I brought him back, he pushed back at me to come back rather than staying out to the contact, so we worked on that quite a bit and I finally felt him stay out there when I went to collect him back. I was to goose him a few times a circle to keep him under himself and make sure that when I did that, he didn't push back at me to respond.

We then jumped into canter lateral work. The haunches-in is getting much better and from there, we did some half passes from the rail to the centerline. Tanya's main critique was that I was allowing him to sweep too much laterally rather than insisting he jump through. I had to block him on the inside side with my inside aids and encourage him to be more powerful. This was tough for my "my horse is green" brain to comprehend because I didn't want to discourage him from going that direction.

But again, TC and Tanya just work together in the lesson and I'm just there being surprised about how good he is as they laugh at me together. So he stepped right up and gave me some REALLY quality half pass despite the inside leg not letting him sneak through.

EXCUSE ME SIR

To end, we did some changes on the rail, which blew TC's mind. TC is used to doing them on the diagonal, across the middle, or on the rail from counter canter, but not on the rail into counter canter. We had a discussion about how in my hopes to not have TC anticipate the change, TC doesn't understand the process of setting up changes and then responding to the aid. He's frequently surprised by my aids. So when I asked for them on the rail, he was like WHAT??

Tanya and I spoke about where I need to put him and over how many strides - I need to get him into the new outside rein so that I can give the new inside rein in the change (this is what causes his changes to be late in front) and I need to ask within three strides of changing things so he understands when they're coming.

It was pretty cool to be working on this stuff! With this, I think we'll be doing tempi changes this fall, which is really exciting!

He's the weirdest

Generally, I was really pleased. We addressed everything I wanted to (the shortness in the neck, the changes, and the canter half passes), TC felt amazing, and I feel like I am starting to be able to replicate it at home a bit more.

But unfortunately it does go a tiny bit against what Anne wanted in our lesson. Tanya is very much a hind leg person, get the hind leg active and then he'll get pumped up through his topline and I can rock him back. Anne wanted me to get the hind leg active while keeping him shifted back. So basically Tanya says the hind leg comes first, Anne says the weight shift comes first. The end goal is the same though, a highly active, uphill horse!

So I've been basically doing both, but more on that later.