Aftereffects

A couple of weeks ago, Kate told me that she was hauling eight hours north to a clinic this last weekend with the Traveling Horse Witch. I was immediately on board after reading her Facebook page, which had a TON of super interesting things that made me nod vigorously and think of TC.

So Kate, one of her awesome AA clients, and I headed out on Saturday midday, arriving late into the evening. If there’s anyone I would want in a car with me for seven hours, it’s Kate, so the time flew past as we talked. 

Unfortunately I’d had a terrible ride on TC Saturday morning, so I spent the trip mildly spiraling and wondering if this pattern would ever end. After months of work on his posture, he feels great, we ramp up a bit, then he hits a wall after about a week and we are back to low level work to fix his posture again. I was feeling pretty shit as we headed to the clinic. We'd had such a great week of work with him really pressing up through his withers for me and then it was like Saturday morning we lost it all. I know it was just one ride, but these things seem to happen like that, he feels great for a week and then he feels terrible one ride and then I can't get the great feeling back until we have a month of working in a Training level frame. 

Kate's horse is TC's chaotic best friend, they cannot
spend too much time together because things get weird

Luckily for me, Saturday was the perfect day for it all to fall apart. After the eight hour drive and less than that many hours of sleep, the first things I saw and heard arriving at the clinic on Sunday morning were enough to completely validate everything I've been feeling and explain why this pattern is constantly happening. 

Unfortunately I've sat down to write this post a fair number of times and am having trouble consolidating the truly insane amount of information. It's not that the one day we spent there had as much information as three days at the Mary Wanless clinic or anything. It's more that the pieces of information that were given out that day was enough to completely rewrite my understanding of equine anatomy and dressage as a whole. 

I'm still processing it all and so is Kate, at random we will call or text each other things in the same way we were exclaiming them in the car on the way home. Kate's poor AA had to listen to "oh my god... faulty oscillation of the neck at the canter" "oh... oh wow, no... absolutely" and then we just get quiet and think again. 

I do want to talk about the clinic, but I think I'll do it backwards. I think I'll talk about how it's changed what I'm specifically doing with TC and then I'll fill in gaps when Kate and I have had more time to talk. Every day we've been talking on the phone about it and comparing notes as we change what we do with our horses. It's been super interesting and super fun. I think right now I'm in a place where I know that it's working on TC but I don't know how to connect it to the rest of my knowledge. 

One of the women at the clinic had the most adorable
puppy! I loved her, so cute

I've ridden TC twice between getting back from the clinic and writing this post and the change has been incredible. 

When I spoke to the clinician about TC, I mentioned that the horse was scoring well at Third level last year but that he had no topline and had hit a wall. She said "it's always Third level" and I thought that was surprising, but apparently it's a thing! I pulled a bunch of video and photos in the past and it's all lining up that we'd have hit this particular wall at this particular time. Was the saddle an issue? Absolutely! Training? Yep that too. Everything I've done research on and changed has helped, but my fundamental understanding of how to ride him in the balance he needed to be ridden in was wrong, including much of the way I've trained horses in the past, how I've been taught to ride, and how I've taught other people to ride. I'm so glad I'm not teaching much right now because it's been overwhelming. 

His body is totally different to ride

To make this post make sense, I want to talk about the two biggest things I learned at the clinic. 

First, the brachiocephalicus muscle aka the under neck muscle, is antagonistic with the pectorals. The pectorals are part of the mechanism that engages the horse's thoracic sling. That means that if the brachiocephalicus muscle is engaged (aka underneck bulging), the pectorals cannot engage and the horse cannot lift through the withers. 

Second, the brachiocephalicus muscle is symbiotic with the psoas. Meaning that when the brachiocephalicus muscle is engaged, the psoas must be engaged. So if the underneck is tight, the psoas have no ability to relax. If the psoas is stuck in the engaged position, the horse's core cannot turn on. Adding leg will exacerbate this faulty movement pattern as it shoves the horse forward over the ground, where they then balance on the underneck which then fires the psoas, often in a fairly painful way. 

Pony also benefited from this work! More on him
at a later time

So rewind a year ago, I was feeling confused. Something was wrong with my horse but nothing I was being told in my lessons seemed inherently wrong. TC needed more energy, engagement, suppleness, a more robust connection. I was instructed to add leg, to add power, to ride suppling exercises. But the more I did this, the harder he became to ride and the more his muscles wasted away. 

In addition, his aid system was completely insane. The only aid he'd reliably respond to in the same way was the whip, but only at the trot. Leg could mean go, sure, but it could also mean balk, it could mean quicken, it could mean hover trot. Reins were blasted through sometimes and yielded to others. My seat mostly meant nothing, even when I dedicated time to working on it. For the last year, I've been trying my best to rebuild a simple aid system but he's felt... slippery. And I've never been able to explain to someone what that actually meant. I couldn't get my aids on him and those that did go on him seemed to slide away ineffectively. 

Much harder to the right

I did a lot of things, made a lot of changes over the last year. I have no regrets with any of them. I think moving him to the ranch has been amazing for both of us. I think changing saddles (fingers crossed for this weekend) has been great for him. I think all the bodywork has opened up a lot of things that we've needed to work through. But nothing has made the amount of sense that this weekend did. There's always been something missing and I finally feel like I've found it, because it addresses the riding portion of it. 

So when I got home, I slept the best I could and then drove down to the ranch on Monday morning. I worked on TC's shoulders on the ground, just some of the massage work that the book I bought a few years ago talked about. Both of his shoulders were fairly tight, I couldn't get my fingers under his shoulder blades. I mean, I've been told to narrow his shoulders while riding him for years now AND his previous saddle jammed forward into his shoulder blades. His shoulders were collapsed around his neck, that can't be comfortable.

I then got on him and walked him around the arena with no contact. I then asked for his outside foreleg to abduct away from his body and then asked him to engage his inside pectoral muscle to shift his weight onto his outside foreleg. Even just doing that allowed him to swing more through his back than I've felt in the past. Tracking left was easier to get than tracking right. 

From there, we continued that work in the trot with him stretching forward, downward, and out. I just trotted around on a loose rein shifting his weight. Nothing too exciting. I started feeling like my whip was in my way so I put it down and continued the work. I then picked up the reins a little bit. I immediately felt the brachiocephalicus and the psoas tighten. My feel through his back disappeared and I lost the ability to know what he was doing in the contact, I saw the bulge at the third vertebrae and knew it must not be good. I increased my bear down, pushed my hands a bit forward, and changed my posting mechanic to include more suction and he relaxed into contact, loosening up his neck and the swing in his back started again. 

The trot started to get easier and easier to ride. I didn't have to be constantly managing him, I just sat there. I didn't have to plan too far ahead for steering, he was just able to turn whenever I asked him to. That broken down aid system that I thought I'd fucked up just... worked. I could halt him from my seat and he stayed balanced in the transition. I didn't need the whip to get him going, or my spur, really. He never quickened his trot, just stayed in the same swingy tempo. All these issues we'd had seemed to melt away. And his facial expressions through the ride were amazing, he had a soft eye, floppy ears, and he was breathing deeply and steadily. He slotted into work with an ease that I've not ever felt on him.

Lots of stretching to come this week and next

I just walked and trotted both days after doing some massage work on his shoulders, psoas, and brachiocephalicus, nothing too exciting. I didn't ask him for any collection or any movements. My goal was to release the psoas and the brachiocephalicus and to work on him engaging his pectorals. Widen his shoulders and get his back swinging. 

The plan is to rebuild him like this. I've penciled in about two months of this type of work, this coincides with treatment for hind gut ulcers, which also came up at the clinic and TC showed a lot of the signs of having them. We'll hopefully get our saddle tomorrow and I'll have instructions on how to change the fit as he hopefully builds muscle. 

My brain is still reeling from the other information I've learned. I'll put it into writing sometime next week. Kate comes out today to help me with TC and Sunny so I'm sure I'll have more to share on both of them next week as well. 

I'll hopefully be attending a clinic with the clinician this fall/winter to continue working along those lines. But even with just the information I gathered from auditing, I'm so excited to move forward and I think I've got almost all of the puzzle pieces in line. All that's left is allowing them to slot together and for us to build our partnership back alongside his topline. Fingers crossed! 

WW: Life Changing Clinic Auditing

I'm still trying to gather all my thoughts from a clinic I audited this weekend. I feel fairly strongly that it completely changed everything I know about this sport. But I will leave you with these two pictures for now while I try to put into writing what is going on in my brain. I think TC has some things to say on the subject before I can compose my own thoughts. 

Be careful to consider his facial expression as well. 

Yesterday

Early 2020

Saddle Thoughts

So I'm planning on buying the saddle I used for all of August next weekend. The fitter is convinced he can keep it from sliding with a couple of adjustments and even if it slides a little bit, I think I will still end up with it. 

He's so cool, I hope he lets me wear my shadbelly
on him one day!

It seems crazy to knowingly buy a saddle that isn't perfect, it's not like the saddle isn't expensive... but I was realizing the other day that TC's future is still a bit up in the air. Don't take that the wrong way, that horse has a near permanent place in my life and I am 95% certain I won't sell him. If I do, it will be to someone who I know and who I've leased him to for a year or more. But if he's not going to be comfortable going beyond Third level, I'm probably going to look for a lease option for him or a career change for the pair of us (turn him into my fun trail horse and maybe teach some lessons on him).

I'm fairly certain that the issues we've hit on this last year were caused by the saddle issue and the training program we were subscribed to. I've since rehabbed him from that training program and he's been out of that saddle for a while. This saddle is not going to cause those same issues. It does not have long front gussets, it does not have tree points, and it has enough give to it that he can actually use his shoulders and lift his back. Even if it slides forward, it doesn't crush his shoulders, it just annoys me mostly. This saddle will absolutely rule out the original saddle issue even if it isn't a perfect fit just because of how the saddle is made. 

it's hard to see but this squirrel wants to hang out
in the cool sand in the shade lol

But... there's definitely a chance that there's some other stuff going on that maybe were made worse by the saddle. At the end of the day, the horse isn't purpose bred for this sport and his conformation/lack of tone is very challenging. The upper levels are hard enough on a horse with perfect conformation. Don't get me wrong, I am a firm believer that almost all horses can make it to the Grand Prix. But the question may end up being, is it fair to keep pushing him if he's not entirely comfortable or confident in the work? With how he's been going this week, I see nothing holding him back. I can feel a canter pirouette in there and his mind is so good. However, because we hit the wall we did at the time in his training we did (hitting the collection wall as we head into Fourth level, yikes), it's on the back of my mind. He was never meant to be my next Grand Prix horse after all. 

If that's the case, my plans for him will be to solidify the lower levels and turn him into a bronze medal machine. Lease him out to someone who can love on him and learn from him (he's totally bombproof, easy in all the movements, and super sweet, his only downside is that his gaits are no joke to sit! But I think he'd love to have a junior), either a half lease so I can keep playing with him for fun, or I can full lease him into a program I trust. Horses like him are worth their weight in gold and I've always wanted to give back to the sport with a schoolmaster. I've always planned on doing this when he hits whatever level he tells me is his max level, it'd suck if it was Third level, but who knows!

Because things are so up in the air, I'm not entirely enthused to buy a fully custom saddle that's perfectly fit to me and to him. If he ends up maxing out where we are at right now, the saddle I'm planning on buying would be perfect. I could send it with him to his leaser and not worry that it's going to get bumped or bruised (it's a demo so it's already a bit bruised). If he ends up telling me that he can and will do the FEI levels, I'll keep the saddle I'm buying this year for my next horse (since it can be fit to any horse) and then buy him a fancy full custom saddle!

The sand was hot on top but a bit damp under the
first layer so this guy kept digging himself a little
place to sploot in the shade

So that's my reasoning for buying a "pretty good but not perfect" saddle at this time. The cost of this saddle is half what I'd be getting a full custom saddle for so I may be saving money in the long run, or I could be spending even more on a full custom saddle, but I would have needed to buy a second saddle for my next horse anyway since I'm planning on overlapping my horses by at least a few years. 

Fingers crossed that the fitter can get it to not slide anymore so even if TC makes it to the Grand Prix, I can just keep riding in it! But even if it still slides a little bit, I'll probably still go for it.

Pony Updates

My personal life imploded about two weeks ago so I am only now starting to catch up on writing blog posts. If you have messaged me in the last two weeks and I haven't responded, please know that time has had very little meaning to me during this time and I am very sorry! 

Things are getting better though! Plus, I've been riding the ponies and I'm excited to share how things are going with them. 

Look at this guy!

First, I've jumped Sunny a few more times since my last post about it. He's starting to do his obnoxious land and launch bullshit again, so my current plan is to get him fitter so that I can take him over to Kate's barn and have her jump him for me. I can sit his launchy bullshit but I don't love it and last time he did it, he tweaked my back. Serves me right for jumping him bareback in tennis shoes. 

But other than his leaping after the fence occasionally, he's been super good! I've finally accessed another gear in his canter (he only had the one when I started riding him) and wow a compact horse is way easier to put together than TC. I can endlessly circle power through his body and catch it in my seat and hand and recycle it back. Next horse needs to have a short back and be at least 300lbs lighter than TC! 

He’s schooling all of First level now and I even started some counter canter the other day. He’s kind of terrible at it so I’m excited to see that develop. My mom has been so excited to see him go and wants to start riding him after she’s finished with physical therapy (there’s a soft tissue injury in her hip I guess? She lost full range of motion but it’s getting better!). I’m really excited to have her ride him. I think if she likes how he’s going, I’ll keep riding him for as long as I can (still waiting on a new job that will probably take away my flexiblity) and then hire one of Kate’s assistants to ride him a few times a week to keep him going for her. She has this habit of not riding him unless he’s in work but to keep him in work, she has to ride him. So I’ll just keep him in work for her! 

Pretty happy with my bareback position given that
I haven't worked over fences without stirrups in
like 12-15 years lol

In front of the vertical, poll up, ah I love it

So, onto TC, what a freaking rock star he's been lately. I've been wondering if there would come a time when I have my horse back or if I'd be working on his postural issues forever. Just this last weekend though, he finally gave me access to his longitudinal balance. That's been something I don't know if I've ever had access to, to be honest. How does someone get to Third level without accessing the horse's longitudinal balance? No idea. I have a lot of opinions about collection and if it’s *actually* shown at the highest levels, but that’s a post for another day. 

For the first time, I think ever, TC is actually carrying weight behind at the trot. I think all of the work we've done over the last year... the six months I rode him off the bit to reset the connection, the saddle changes, all the long lining and clicker training for posture, all of his PT exercises, lots of acupuncture, all the things... well, it's finally paying off. It seems to be, at least. And I'm not taking video every day (limiting myself to once a week) so I've been feeling a lot less crazy. 

Poll highest point, nose IFV, there are lots of things
to like so I'm happy

The trot is going to take a while but his canter is just stellar right now. I feel a canter pirouette in it to the right, which has historically been our trickier side. The left has been a bit tough recently, but the other day, I figured out that it was just an issue that he wouldn't step to the right rein without sliding through it so we fixed that and then it felt great! I think it'll take a while to gain strength on that side. 

We’ve actually been able to work on flying changes too. In our last ride, we did them and they were straight and clean. He definitely doesn’t understand how to keep the quality of the canter through the change, the change puts him on the forehand, so I need to think about some exercises to help him understand how to jump through the change in an uphill balance. But wow working on literally anything but trotting and cantering in circles has been so fun! I'm excited to be utilizing other exercises for the first time in a long time. 

Hind leg ooooo

That neck!

Obviously it’s been a tough time for me in my personal life and it’s not over yet. I figure this blog may go through dark periods during the next couple of months, so I’ll do my best to write a lot of posts when I’m feeling up to it and schedule them over time. We do have some fun things coming up, like next Thursday I might get to buy a saddle!! After I get the saddle, I want to load up on lessons again. I want to see remote trainer for sure and I want to go back to local trainer, especially because her barn is an option for me for the winter. I’m also hoping to see my biomechanics person too. 

And this winter I definitely want to address my SI issues. I have this feeling that my own SI issues are causing some issues in his hind legs, namely my right leg gets sciatica and I’m not convinced that his right hind doesn’t have some sciatica at times as well. He's always itchy on that side but never seems to be able to tell me exactly where he wants to be itched. If that doesn't go away, I might take him to my lameness vet to work him up on that leg, but I'm hopeful that if I address my own issues and take the time to build his strength, we can get through it. At least with my own sciatica, strengthening my core and back helped a lot. 

So, fingers crossed for the saddle and for continuing along this path with my wonderful horse! 

Trail Rides x 2

Well, Monday was my first day without the saddle so I decided to trail ride both horses bareback. 

Best trail horse ever!

The air has been infuriatingly borderline for a while now. Last year was way worse, don't get me wrong. First, a lightning storm that caused 3 fires to start that were within striking distance of where TC was. Then the evacuation. Then an apocalyptic day where it was just orange all day long. Then another lightning storm. Then TC's lungs being iffy for a few months after the smoke cleared. 

But at least last year it was clear that we shouldn't be riding at all. This year, the AQI has been hovering in the 80s and 90s. I've noticed for myself, when it's over 100, I get a sore throat and a headache if I'm in it for too long and the horses are in it 24/7. I've been nebulizing TC before I ride him but I still have been riding him. I put him back in light work with lots of breaks and he's only coughed a total of three rides (two of those being walk only rides when the air was worse a couple weeks ago and one being the ride I did on Sunday with the saddle fitter but we also didn't nebulize or have as much warm up time because we were in a rush).

Heading up to the trailhead!

The trail splits off here, the left one goes down and
around to the trailhead and the other goes up and
around the "bowl" aka the small valley up near the
top of the hill. At some point I'll make a helmet cam
video of the whole thing!

I figured that TC was okay to go up the hill but if he coughed, we'd turn right around and I'd put him away. Luckily for both of us, he was fine! 

The neighbors are doing some construction up there and they put their horses in a different location, so TC was a little nervous when he saw the horses in an odd place. I just love how good this horse is these days. I could feel his heart pounding, on so many other horses I'd be leaping off of them and preparing for an explosion. But we just stood there waiting and then he was like "eh okay" and we walked on. 

The loops that are up there are a little repetitive, but I've got a routine of not going the same direction on the same trail more than once. That makes the trail ride about 45 minutes, which is nothing to sneeze at! Our short loop at the local trail facility (which I haven't been to in a while ugh hopefully next month when we hopefully have a saddle and better air) is an hour and a half, but the trails at the ranch feel like more climbing so six of one, half dozen of another? 

Snorting at the horse down below

I love seeing my two boys hanging out together,
TC walks around a ton and Rico follows him!

After TC and I got back to the ranch, I hosed him off and then took Sunny out. It's easier to trail ride both of them on the same day because trail riding involves driving the ATV up the hill to open all the gates. 

Sunny was happy to go out until he realized that I was going to use the trail ride as a way to do some trot sets on him. He's been losing weight for a while now and actually looks really good right now! He's always been a bit of a chonker. Now that he's carrying less weight and is in better shape, he's way more agile, so I figured that I could continue to build strength with some trotting and cantering up the hills. TC can't trot or canter on hard ground per the vet (he had the beginnings of sidebone at his vet check so I decided to only trot and canter in the arena), but Sunny is pretty sturdy and much smaller. 

He defaults to picking up the right lead, so I made sure to have him pick up the left as much as the right. We also did a fair amount of trotting, which was fun, he's a little guy but he can cover some ground when he wants to. 

Tired pony!

I didn't take as many pictures on Sunny as I did on
TC, woops

I was done with both horses in about three hours, which is pretty good given that TC's PT exercises and nebulizing takes a while as we are tacking up. It's nice to be able to get some hill work in without hauling out! 

Tiny Jomps

So I've been continuing to ride little Sunny, my mom's 14.2h (or so) pony. We skipped our potential western dressage schooling show this last weekend because of the smoke. It probably would have been fine but when the entries were due, we had no idea what was going to happen. 

I broke down this spring when I was desperately saddle shopping and bought a brockamp bareback pad. When I first got it, I was not toooo impressed, it just felt like a regular bareback pad. But then after riding in it, I got in my saddle (well, the demo saddle I gave back) and it felt insanely slippery. Then I realized that it's not just the cushioniness that makes that bareback pad amazing, I don't think I could fall off using it even if I tried. 

Dear, Sunny, that is not a challenge. Oh, TC would never. 

Look how excited he was to jump tiny jumps, also
wow he has lost weight, he was very chonky when
I started riding him

Anyway, my niece came out to ride with me a week and a half ago and I put her on the bareback pad in front of me and it was super comfortable. After that, I just started using it on him more than the western saddle. 

All last week and this weekend I played with the cavallettis that I talked about last week. I went from the circle of death to two outside lines set a forward 5/short 6 apart. We practiced cantering them and adjusting his step. 

On Friday, I decided to raise them because both TC and Sunny kept shifting the lines by knocking poles. That made it way harder for me to adjust him since I had to remember who moved what pole where. I just raised the inside side of the pole because there are only six cavalletti blocks and also I got tired of moving things around in the heat. 

Those are tennis shoes, yes

Sunny had SO MUCH FUN cantering over the poles. I had my pivo on and this helped me realize that my problem on Sunny has been that he's kind of underpowered over fences. That means he has to lurch over the jumps and when he gets to the other side, he figures he'll just keep bronc bucking. He's just an adorable little pony, so he needs a bit of speed to make up for his little legs?

I called Kate and chatted with her about it. It's also my tendency to underpower Flounder to the fences so I had to tell her that I was going to practice racing at all the jumps on Sunny. I can't believe she still wants to teach me after all of the obnoxious things I say about my return to jumping. 

That... IS a western bridle, you are very astute

I put up a little jump on Saturday and decided to try it out. We started with the world's tiniest cross rail and ended up with the world's second most tiny cross rail, but he was actually really good! 

My goal was to ride the lines in five and then turn to the fence, keeping the same pace. I also wanted Sunny to take me a bit more to the fence like Flounder does, so teaching him to come out of the corners powerfully to get over the line (the arena is like... ten Sunny strides long) really helped him stay powerful through the corner to the single fence. 

Yes... that is a dressage whip, we are a very confused
pair, okay??

We only jumped it a few times and I called it quits. I think today (or whenever, I don't know when this post is going to go out), I'll put up two other jumps, (remember, limited cavallettis here) and try to ride more of a course. I need more than one jump to not teach a horse to stop after jumps because I will absolutely stop 2-3 strides after landing if I can, I have no idea where that habit came from. 

Then hopefully we can haul over to Kate's barn fairly soon! I think she's got a jumping saddle that I can borrow.

Goodbye Saddle, Temporarily

The saddle fitter who gave us the saddle for August came by on Sunday to pick it up. I'm about 90% wanting to buy it but I told him that I was a little skeptical only because the saddle keeps sliding forward. I like everything else about it, the block is a good size but isn't restricting my leg at all. The seat is comfortable (even when the fit isn't perfect). The leather is good quality. It's a fully modular saddle so if I decide to change out the block or the seat, I won't have to buy a completely new saddle. But ugh, this forward sliding thing. 

I just love this horse

But does TC just have a body type that all saddles will slide forward on? Do I buy this one because it doesn't have tree points so it doesn't matter toooo much that it slides forward (it mostly annoys me)? Or do I hold out to buy something absolutely perfect? 

If I buy it now, am I settling? If I don't buy it, am I in for a year or more of battling to find the perfect saddle only to find out that there is no perfect saddle?

Saddle shopping is the worst. 

He's going pretty well right now despite minimal
riding in the smoke

After our last lesson with local trainer, his right
lead canter has improved so much

Those were all questions I was feeling when he came by. I asked him about the sliding and he says he's 100% confident that with a different tree (slightly wider), we can get it to stop sliding. And if that doesn't work, we can move the billets forward, which may restrict the shoulder a bit, but it won't slide. I can actually do that adjustment myself, so we can basically try out different billet placements and let TC decide where he wants his billets.  

He adjusted it to rebalance it, but we didn't have the different tree to try (and the discussion of the billets came after we were all done). After the adjustment it did seem to stay put for longer, so that was positive, but it did slide, so I gave it back. 

I asked him if there was a refund policy, like if I buy it and it doesn't work, can I return it? No. Ugh. I couldn't commit at that point, so I felt really bummed as we walked back to the barn. But then I realized that there might be another option. 

The right is still super tricky, I am excited to see
what his PT thinks about it! 

Now the left lead is harder lol

I asked when he was coming back and he said in three weeks. I asked if he'd have the correct size tree then (he was saying he put in an order for a bunch of different ones because all his clients' horses are bulking up right now I guess. He said he would and then I asked if he'd be willing to let me try the demo again with the correct tree. If it worked, I'd put in my order. One month's delay is a lot on a saddle that will take 10 weeks to get here, but who knows how much I'll be riding this fall and winter anyway and I did just get my fancy bareback pad and am doing more core work, so maybe I could do some bareback boot camp when we can actually ride. 

He said that would absolutely work and he picked up the saddle. I got a pang of bummed-out-ness and then I asked him on a whim if he ever sold demos. Like could I just take that saddle if it works? 

He seemed slightly surprised that I'd want it. I think a lot of people get excited about all the fancy stuff you can do with it, fancy leather and fancy back plates and all that. I am so unbelievably desperate to have something to ride in and to save a fair amount of money and 10 weeks would mean a ton to me! I want to start riding with both trainers again the moment we can (the moment the fires go out, TC will get a lung ultrasound and then go back to full work!). I'm also not a fancy saddle person. Maybe in the future when this saddle becomes new horse's saddle and I have lots of money (I'm putting a lot of pressure on future Megan lol). 

I'll miss this saddle! 

Goodbye saddle!

So, that's where we are at. My goal for the next three and a half weeks is to get TC in as many other saddles as possible. If I can find something that we both like and that doesn't slide or get in the way of his shoulders, I'll let this saddle fitter know that I'm not interested. If we get to the saddle fit appointment, then fingers crossed it works and I can buy it! 

Six Years

As of tomorrow, I've owned TC for six years. Prior to writing this post, I went back through the five other posts I made about the years I've owned this horse. I've been surprisingly consistent about it! 

Year 1

Year 2

Year 3

Year 4

Year 5

All of those years feel like a lifetime ago, even last year. This last year has been so tough on us. From the mysterious muscle wasting to the fires to trainer issues to saddle issues to dissecting physical issues with bodyworkers. It's hard to look back on so many years of successes and all the feelings of excitement and hope that I felt in the past. I still feel hopeful, don't get me wrong, but sometimes years like this happen. Smooth sailing doesn't exist when you're really pushing yourself beyond where you've been before. Or at least that's what I'm going to tell myself. 

I just adore him, even after six years

Every time I've gone to give myself a bit of shit about this year being such a disaster, I've tried to remember Rico's progression through the levels and how "unusual" it was. But we still made it to the Grand Prix. And the most influential years were those where we weren't showing. 

2005: Training and First

2006: Second

2007: brought him home and did a lot of trail riding and jumping

2008: mostly just jumped

2009: Third and Fourth

2010: injured

2011: injured

2012: Fourth

2013: Fourth and PSG

2014: Int 1, Int 2, Grand Prix

Those two slowdowns, both lasted two years and both were major reasons why we made it to the Grand Prix. The first one in 2007 started because I didn't like the training barn I was in and I brought him to the barn I considered home (the one my parents kept their horses at at the time) and I trail rode him to the local facility to ride him on my own. There, I started jumping him and took the pressure off of the dressage. Trail riding every day and jumping him were both things that made me nervous early on. He scared the hell out of me from 2005 into 2007, but I had to get over it if I wanted to ride him, which I did. 

In 2008, I moved him to a jumping trainer's barn and gained even more confidence with him as we started to school over larger fences. By the time I moved him back to the dressage barn, we were a completely different pair and that gave me the confidence to be able to really ride at the mid-levels of dressage. 

Can you be like this all the time, TC?

The second slowdown was due to injuries. His first one was a suspensory in late 2009 that put us into rehab mode, but then he came up lame in 2010 again which was his big injury, the DDFT lesion that needed to be fixed with surgery. Then he had a mild check ligament injury in early 2012. That whole time we were starting and stopping rehabbing and I was on my own, no trainer to help me and no idea if it was all for naught. 

But by the time he was back to full work, his basics were better than ever, better than they would have been if we hadn't been sidelined by the injuries. We were forced to do lots of transitions because he couldn't do more than 30 seconds of trot at first. I was forced to address some of the issues (connection issues, impulsion issues, collection issues) to preserve his soundness and to keep both of us entertained during the rehab. 

What we're after

Right now I'm in a slowdown period with TC and it feels like we'll never get out of it. It feels like we keep being pummeled by one thing after another after another. The trainer issues last year, the fires flooring us, moving barns, figuring out saddle issues, bodyworkers left and right. Nothing is really *wrong* with him, there's no diagnosis (yet? unsure), and for that I'm grateful. 

But I'm really hoping that next year, or maybe not until the year after, I'll look back on this time as a much needed development time. I reevaluated my training situation last year and find trainers who were willing to think outside the box this year; realized that TC is sensitive to the smoke and learned how to deal with it; learned SO MUCH about saddle fit and how that affects the horse's ability to move properly; moved TC to the ranch where he has more space and can be physically more healthy; and I learned about TC's issues with his biotensegrity and how to help him with his posture. 

Such a good boy

So while the last year doesn't match a lot of the years I've had with TC. We have barely had lessons (except randomly I took four in the month of August lol), barely traveled outside of the move, haven't shown at all... it's been a good year. A painful year with all the growing pains, but a good one. I'm hoping that by the time I write about our seventh year together, I'll have a lot of good to show for what we did during our sixth year. 

Almost Back to Work

We are almost back to work now that the air has been good for the last four days! TC and I have been riding bareback in the bands this week doing all his postural work, including starting training the Spanish walk undersaddle. I'm hoping that if I get a decent Spanish walk on him, I'll be able to use that in warm up to loosen up his shoulders! Plus it gives us something to do. 

Yesterday, we trotted briefly and he didn't cough at all. Today I'll do the same thing and then he gets tomorrow off. He'll then do a light ride at walk, trot, and a little canter on Saturday and if he doesn't cough, I'll bring him back into full work next week. 

TC is the world's most bombproof horse, I'm sure
of it, he dragged me down the road to play with 
this fun toy

While TC has been walking, Sunny has been able to do more work. He definitely isn't as sensitive to the smoke given that TC had two coughs per walk for the first couple of days and Sunny hasn't coughed once. He's only 14.1 or so, his lungs are much smaller. 

Yesterday, Sunny and I changed up the poles in the arena. I was chatting with Kate about my jumping and she said that I will sometimes freeze 4 strides before the fences. She and I had a super interesting discussion about how that's super common and why she thinks it develops in (most) riders. So my goal is to work on that as much as possible while I'm still jumping relatively small (as the freezing only gets worse over larger fences). I notice that it happens mostly when I don't see a distance. And I noticed that happens mostly when I'm cantering a horse who I can't adjust easily. 

If you have ever wondered what TC's
tail looked like braided, wonder no more

Enter: Sunny, the world's least adjustable creature. He literally has one walk, one trot, and one canter. I've been working on changing his trot stride length to almost no avail, he really moves more like a baroque horse than a non-baroque horse. His little legs like to go very fast when I put my leg on, which is unhelpful in lengthening his trot stride or adjusting his canter stride over fences. 

I put out two lines on each side of the arena slightly in from the rail so I could go around them. They were both set at a comfortable five for him, which I did without measuring so I can't even tell you how long his step is. I just eyeballed it and then cantered him quietly through. 

Then I challenged him to get six and four at random. He was actually quite successful, but it was tough for him! To get the six, he was almost breaking and trying to go sideways to make the line longer. To get the four, he had to really bust his little butt to get down the line. It was really good though and reminded me of a lot of lessons from ten or fifteen years ago about how to adjust strides in lines. 

Considering biting my foot while we
are riding around bareback this week

He's having so much fun with the poles too! By the end of the ride, he was super energetic, which is unlike him. I figure I can kill two birds with one stone with the poles: get him more forward so he's more pleasant for me to ride and work on my jumping in between jumping lessons. 

Fingers crossed the air stays good through the weekend (and for the next several years if I'm crossing my fingers anyway) so that I can try the adjustability exercise on TC! I have a feeling he'll be a little easier to adjust. 

WW: TC Loves Cows

Since we are mostly just walking this week, I've been letting TC do his favorite activity: walking down the road and staring at the cows.

He grew up next to a field of cows and so I always wonder whether he watches cows with the same amount of nostalgia that I have when I watch television shows I grew up with. Either way, I think it's adorable how much he loves them. For this wordless Wednesday, here are a bunch of pictures of cows and especially pictures of TC appreciating cows. 

The longhorns next door had babies!

This one is always by the fence, he's very curious!

The neighbor on the other side
has these big guys, they like
to hang out in the shade

Baby longhorn by the fence again!

I think he'd just watch them for days if he could

Hi baby cow!

Aren't they so cute?!