Back in the (Old) Saddle

I've surprisingly done some dressage in my last few rides.

The horror, look how long my stirrups are

It's been a while since I really wanted to do any dressage, probably closing in on 6 months, maybe longer. Basically it got to the point where obsessing over my horse's posture and topline and how collected is he and is the angle correct for this leg crossing move and well that was clean but it was in the wrong balance and so on... just became so frustrating for both of us. I kept feeling like we'd make progress in one department only to have another one become a problem. 

I also didn't love how I have to ride him in order to do well in the show ring. He and I scored the best when I was chasing him into a short neck. No thanks. 

Not the longest neck but not the way it used to be

He's such a fun horse

So for a long time, I've been primarily riding in my TCS and on a loose rein with my horse off the bit. I love my TCS because it's comfortable like a bareback pad but it's enough like a saddle where TC has deemed it appropriate for going faster than a walk in. I'm sure I've mentioned this before, but the horse is convinced that bareback pads are for walking only. If you try to trot him, he literally stops and turns his head around at you like "what exactly is your problem?"

In coming back to work, TC has been a bit... much... to canter to the left. I think he's just feeling sassy and excited to be moving? I don't know, but either way it's not fun to ride in a tiny strip of leather. 

Finally one day I was like, I do have a saddle I could ride in. So I broke it out and what do you know? It doesn't fit him anymore. He basically had 4 months off and lost a ton of topline, so it bridges really badly. More on that later. 

I forget how big he is sometimes! 

I could use some biomechanics lessons lol this is
apparently what I do after an entire winter off

On a whim, I pulled out my old saddle. And that one actually sat pretty well on him! Not perfect, but definitely not bridging. 

Being back in this saddle brought a flood of memories back both of Rico and TC. And TC was actually SUPER good in it. Like, kind of feral, but offered me some fun dressage stuff (like an unfit extended trot I didn't ask for) so I went with it. We did some flying changes and some shoulder-in and some counter canter. And it was actually so much fun to be back in this saddle feeling like my old self on my horse feeling like his old self. 

A few days later (these pictures are from the first ride fyi), I found myself itching to get back in the saddle and fix the connection. He'd been a little backed off the contact to the left and so I saddled up again. I found myself playing with some of the exercises that I like to use for connection and remembering how fun it was to dissect the connection on this tricky horse. We didn't do anything fancy that day, but I left feeling really good about our ride! 

He definitely thought about taking off around this
short side... 

While this isn't my "return to dressage" by any means, it was fun to work on things that I like working on with horses. The connection has always been something I super enjoy working on and it was fun to step back into it.