Bring the Shoulderblade Back

On Thursday I had a lesson with a new trainer! I think I'm going to use this spring to take a few lessons with a bunch of people (within reason) and try to figure out a training situation that works for us. It might take some tweaking but it's not a bad year to use to figure this out given that he is already pretty solidly at the level I want to show him at. 

My main goal has been to find people who have a good eye for the basics and have them help me. One of the people nearby who I figured would be a good one is Jec! She is nearby, only about an hour's haul on roads I'm familiar with, and is someone who you hear talking about posture and stability in a way that I really like and think would be really helpful for TC. 

The last day of sun before the giant
storm rolling through the bay area

I made the mistake of not really examining the property on the street view of google maps so I definitely drove right past her property and got myself stuck on the following street, which was a dead end. Great. It was only one lane so I had to go into some one else's property to turn around using like a 10 point turn. I felt so unbelievably bad but it was that or backing out onto a busy road on a blind turn and I had visions of people driving into my trailer soooo I dunno I did what was safest and I hope they don't mind! I can imagine it happens frequently on that little road. 

I did finally make it into the barn and parked and still had plenty of time to get TC ready and calm myself down a bit. TC thought my adrenaline meant that we were going to have a LOT of fun and he was super amped and ready to go. Luckily I could sit and relax for five minutes and then clicker train relaxation out of TC and we were good to go. 

When TC was quiet, we went over to sign releases and meet Jec! We began the lesson out in this big field she has and it was SO FUN to ride in a giant field again. I rode TC in the field when he was a baby and it was such a blast. TC just loves being in the open and has historically been much safer/quieter to ride in the open vs in the arena. Not sure what his deal is but I appreciate that he's like this. Honestly though, and I'll talk about this a lot, Jec and her property are very calming. TC was a really good boy throughout the lesson. 

She watched him walk around a bit and listened to me talk about what we needed and had us start with some walk poles. The idea was to keep TC's neck long and his stride short (oh wow, that sounds just like Tracey's lesson) so that he put as many footprints in between the poles as possible. At the end of the poles, we'd ride a turn on the forehand or a turn on the haunches (alternating exercises and directions) and walk back through the poles. 

Doing our homework!

After walking through the poles, we trotted around on some paths in the field and she got a good look at his natural way of going. TC thought trotting in the field was great and stretched all the way down. 

Our next exercise was trotting diagonally from the corner of one pole to the corner of the other pole (these corners were both raised probably 6-8 inches off the ground), slicing them, then coming around to the other set of poles and slicing them in the same way. We were to do this in a figure 8 pattern and after the poles, leg yield him away from my new inside leg. 

We started and it was very apparent that when trotting over poles, TC really struggled to keep himself straight without my help, which I refused to give him so that we could give him the opportunity to really learn from the exercise. Once he figured out the exercise though, his trot got so much better! Jec said that she likes this exercise because it really encourages them to shift their shoulder blades back, something that good jumpers do over fences. The difference it made in TC was pretty astounding and I honestly can't fully explain it. I haven't felt him trot like that... ever... though. So I'll be repeating the exercise every week for a while (although we are stuck in the indoor so I don't want to be intrusive, it might take a few weeks to actually do the exercise again). 

It was more of a normal looking
figure 8 lol my art skills aren't great

From there, we went into the arena for our last two exercises. Jec let us walk around on the rail for a bit, letting TC get used to it. But TC didn't really need it, as I said about the vibes

The first exercise was to ride a cloverleaf pattern over a square of poles. Basically go across the poles, then turn left and circle back to come down the poles, then turn left and circle back to come across the poles the other way, then turn left and circle back to come up the poles, and then circle back and get back where you were. 

We did it in both directions just at a trot and TC took out the poles several times. Jec said that what this exercise was going to do for him was give him feedback about his own balance. If he was in balance, he'd be able to trot through without knocking the poles. If he was not, he'd knock the poles. So once again I tried to let him figure it all out on his own. 

Jec started to throw more and more at us. We had to trot through the poles, walk four steps, then trot again. We had to halt just after the poles. We had to canter right after going through the poles and trot right before going back through them. We had to halt in the square. It got harder and harder, and with each new thing, TC would struggle at first and then get the hang of it. 

By the end, he was definitely the most balanced he's been without me being involved and certainly the most balanced I'd felt him with his neck that long. 

Either direction! Imagine them being more
circular though lol 

Our last exercise was to walk him forward over a pole so that the pole was under his midline, left legs on the left side and right legs on the right side. 

One thing to note about TC and Jec is that TC was slowly becoming more and more obsessed with her. I think it's because she wasn't using a microphone, so he could hear her talking and I think he really likes that, he seems to love being talked to. He also gets unreasonably drawn to some people, especially anyone who laughs at him. He was very enamored by Jec and when he climbed up on the poles and got her to laugh, I knew he was about to be a clown. He stood on the pole with one foot and then lifted his other foot up in his shoulder stretch as I was trying to push him sideways down to get off the pole and try again. 

We were not exactly successful at this but she thinks it will REALLY help him, so she wanted me to practice it every day. We've done it a few times and he gets it right at least once a ride, so that's good. He's still very dedicated to being a clown, so that'll be tough to break, but we'll get there! 

Standing over the pole

Jec had to run but let me continue riding if I wanted to, I did a few changes and some half pass just to get some miles at other barns for generalization purposes. Then I headed out and did not have any trouble getting home! 

Overall I thought it was a fabulous lesson. It was very different than what we're used to and I was glad to have the change. 

I think I'll head back over to Jec's barn next month and see if she thinks he's improved. Having cavalletti lessons every month sounds like a really good addition to our program! Inspires me to continue doing cavalletti every week (or twice a week but it's tough because I have to move poles around every time) and it'll keep us on task working on exercises that actually help him vs mindlessly trotting through poles, which is what I have been doing.