Transitions For Days

Yesterday I had an in person lesson with a new trainer! The facility is an hour's haul from the ranch but it's actually only 20 minutes from my house. I actually used to board there like twelve years ago... wow has it actually been that long? Yes it has. But I adore the facility and thought it'd definitely be a contender for a place to move TC to if I start tiring of the drive to the ranch. 

Pivo failed but I got this cute
picture when we got home!

Local trainer actually got her USDF Gold Medal when I got my first Grand Prix score. I actually found out I got my score because I actually won the class (by like... a percentage point lol). I heard the announcement that she'd gotten her medal and I then saw my trainer holding a blue ribbon with my test. 

Then I saw local trainer at the show where my client got her USDF Silver Medal, they were competing against each other actually! Small world!

All I have are at home pictures unfortunately

Anyway, we arrived well ahead of time because I was concerned I'd hit traffic. This worked out because I needed to do TC's exercises and figure out where we were going to be so that I could set up a camera (I brought both my soloshot and my pivo because I'm mildly insane but LOL the pivo recorded 40 seconds of video and then stopped working, jeez). 

For some reason, both of us were on edge. TC had been really spooked about something on Monday, we were supposed to go up the hill but he stood at the base of the hill blowing and I could feel his heart beat... so we just walked down the road and back. Tuesday morning before we hauled out, I found out that there had been a pig up above the pastures that had died soooo that was probably it. 

He was a really good boy on Tuesday, but decided that he hated the water tanks, which were all around the ranch. Then I had this visceral reaction to taking an in person lesson with a trainer I hadn't audited so I was straight up nervous as we warmed up. So there TC is spooking at the two water tanks that were on the side of the arena and there I was probably looking like I was about to shit a brick. Excellent. 

I toned down our saddle pad choice for the lesson,
just used my tan and blue striped one

But the lesson went super well! I told her he has been super easy to put movements on but that the basics are a constant work in progress and that what we are struggling with now is getting him to engage his thoracic sling while staying in front of the vertical and engaged. I said I wanted to get creative and that I had already tried the "pull on the face and kick him a lot" technique and that didn't work so well. When I saw her facial expression as I said this phrase, I knew that it was going to go well. 

While she watched us warm up, I realized that TC was being super lazy. He kept trying to slow down and stop, much like he was doing last year. I got a little worried and let her know that this was unusual for him, that he's normally a bit hotter than this. I really was concerned that this would turn into a lesson where I chased him around the arena. She said that he just looked like he was being a very very good boy but that he was a little overwhelmed with the facility. I mean, the arena is a little spooky and he'd had that issue with the pig the day before so I didn't blame him. I love that she gave him the benefit of the doubt. 

TC + baby cow = too much for me

She first wanted to address the longitudinal balance so had me ride some halt transitions from trot. She had a really good visual to think about: imagine that the horse's trunk is a tube and there's a heavy ball in there. When TC's ball rolls forward, I need to ride a transition to halt and shift it back.  Ideally he won't spend so much time with his ball forward and will build strength to keep it held back. 

I LOVE that and have definitely used that imagery on other horses (I honestly did two training rides on horses in the last three days that I did this work with) but I told her "TC doesn't give me a lot of indications that his ball has shifted, I wish he'd just pull on me or careen around" (like those other horses do) and that's really it. The feel for that ball is tough for me on this particular horse. Something remote trainer also helped me understand but in a different way. But he shields a lot of the bad feeling by being generally a really polite horse who isn't going to pull me down into the depths of hell. So that gave me a ton to think about, I'm still dissecting that and will discuss with remote trainer at our next lesson. 

He looked better than this at the lesson so that made
me happy because this is totally acceptable for where
we are at right now!

After the trot work, we went to canter and I was a little worried because of how quiet TC was being. And sure enough, picking up the canter revealed that he was going to positively live behind my leg. She had some good exercises in canter to get his shoulder more mobile, including riding "squiggly" lines on and off the rail to help him find the rideability. I joked with her that he has tried to jump out of a lot of dressage courts so I liked this exercise as a relatively easy way to play with the straightness and between the aids-ness. 

We headed the other way and the balking got worse. She then said something that was both mind blowing and also frustrating that I hadn't thought of this in the first place. When he balks, walk him... for three steps, then go back to canter. Basically, aggressively agree with him that not cantering is a good idea, but hey now you have to do a walk transition AND a canter transition, might be easier to just... keep cantering. 

TC thought this exercise was great at first. But then it became kind of  a game and both the transitions and the quality of the canter got better and better and better. Never once did he and I fight about it, which is what past trainers have had me do. Like, really get after him when he breaks, hit him with the whip, kick him with the spurs, etc. But that would just make his canter fast and flat... so that was not help to anyone and it made us really combative. 

This exercise though? Wow. There was not one moment where TC and I weren't in sync. He was right there with me in the canter and when he wasn't, he was right there with me in the transitions, both up and down. 

Look at these beggars. I'd just given them home
grown carrots so they were wanting more lol

We ended there and chatted about TC in general. She seemed to like him a lot and has some good ideas for us. She understood that we don't need to play with movements right now, we need to develop the basics again, improve his strength/put a topline back on, and get him rideable in the collected paces again. When we show again (if we show again?) I want to come back out at Third level anyway so there's no reason to drill movements. 

She also told me that the saddle doesn't fit! Already?! It's too tight in front and I'm sitting to the back of it at this point. I'll be texting Mary today to see what she thinks but I'm hoping that it's just because he's put on muscle. If Mary thinks that's the case, I'll message the rep and see if he can adjust it when he comes back out and errrr maybe still let me borrow it for another few weeks? I'm feeling pretty good about the saddle except for the tiny bit of sliding it's doing. If he fits it and it stops sliding, I'll start the process to order one, if it doesn't, I'll probably keep looking. 

So now I've got two trainers I'm happy to ride with right now! One is in my backyard and the other is a super easy hour's haul away. This is so exciting! Seriously the best I've felt about my riding and TC in probably a year and a half. As I wrote this post I actually texted local trainer for another lesson next week while I still have the saddle, and I'm hoping to ride with remote trainer next week too! 

And because of all this goodness, I am SO worried that we are about to set the state on fire and we won't be able to ride for like five months while his lungs recover. Fingers crossed that isn't the case!