Well Lifted

TC and I are still in a bit of a holding pattern. Getting the tracings for the EQ Saddle Science people has proven to be a really tough thing to do for a variety of stupid reasons (mostly on my end). So that will eventually happen and then we'll try that saddle for two weeks and then hopefully all will be well and we'll be back to our regular programming and I'll just be a bit poor. 

In the meantime, I mentioned I've been long lining with the bands and riding him bareback. But this week I was feeling like I wouldn't be a crazy person if I rode him for "real" so I did! I used Rico's awful trail saddle, which is not much more than a bareback pad with stirrups. It makes my back sore and I'm sure does nothing for TC, so I don't like riding in it regularly. But it was fun to just hop on and kind of pretend that things were normal again. 

Lifting through his chest for sure!

Whenever I take a break from clicker training, I always forget how effective it is. So getting on him after really just long lining and clicking for good posture was a TRIP. I've essentially clicker trained myself out of having a rideable horse gaits-wise while simultaneously clicker trained myself out of needing to have a rideable horse because he just knows where to put himself and doesn't need my input to do it. 

I took videos for the first time in a while and it was surprisingly great. Previously, I'd been evaluating them to the point of making myself crazy, so I stopped videoing for a while. I told myself I wouldn't be disappointed if he looked terrible because he's out of shape and I'm out of shape and who even cares anymore. 

Turns out I was actually really pleased with how he both felt and looked! 

Getting a bit of fancy shoulder going on

He just feels... great! He feels confident reaching for the connection, he feels loose through his back, he feels up through his withers, there's not enough good words out there to describe it. The canter to the left was the only time where I felt some of his weird sucking back, but that's fine, it wasn't like the posture was bad, it was just tricky to ride. 

Obviously we are still very much at a Training or First level frame and we are still just trotting and cantering around a bit. I'm not quite sure how to structure the move back toward Third level. I mean, there's absolutely no rush. I put all my goals away this year and am focusing on making progress on some personal goals instead (and also just continuing to recover from the pandemic). 

The left is tough but that's okay

My thoughts are to stick with this work for a month after we get the new saddle to just make sure that nothing is going wrong with the saddle and pack some muscle on him. Some basic lateral and longitudinal suppleness work and transitions. The idea is to not let him go back to his old posture no matter what, so the work needs to be easy for him for a while so that I can reward the crap out of him for holding himself in the correct positioning. 

Then after that month, start to work back in the lateral work, especially the shoulder-in, which should help with the collection. 

At some point I'll do some lessons with... someone. Not sure if I'll try to find someone remotely or locally. I might go ride with some of the trainers I've ridden with who are local and see if me fixing TC's connection will allow them to help me more effectively. Or I might just try to find someone who can catch the connection issue early on. It may end up being a combination, have someone to work on the basics with and then someone who can push us along who may not notice a subtle connection issue starting (which is what I think happened previously). 

This kind of air time is plenty for good changes!

I'm trying not to get too ahead of myself. The EQ Saddle Science saddle is going to be the first one (I guess second if you count the butterfly saddle) on what could potentially be a long, painful saddle finding process. Then it's a long process to bring him back. Even with the right saddle, there's a lot of muscle that needs to be rebuilt and a lot of bad patterns in his body from the last year and a bit. 

At the end of the day, where we are at right now is really exciting and I'm hopeful that we will have a saddle soon(ish) that will allow us to continue the rebuilding process!