Rebuilding the Collection

On Tuesday I had another lesson with the local trainer! It was potentially my last one for a little bit, I keep warning her that I might disappear not because I don't like her but because we have so much potentially working against us coming up. First, I might be taking a new job next week, I'm leaning against it but who knows, really. Second, we may be losing our saddle next week (more on that later). Third, the air quality could go at any given point. But I figure I was available this week and so we made it happen!

TC honestly only got ridden twice since our lesson last Tuesday. He had his acupuncture Wednesday, then got the day off Thursday, then I rode him Friday morning before leaving for the airport and then Monday when I got back. Luckily he's got his giant pasture and about every other morning he canters around like a loon so he was good to go on Tuesday for our lesson. 

Look at this damn tail

Where we got his trot to, wow

I was happy to feel that TC was a little more normal in the trot when I picked it up. She asked whether he was normal this time because last time she thought he was quite behind my leg and I assured her that he actually is quite forward thinking. We agreed last time that he was just nervous being there. This time he did feel better and I told her as such. 

We started with some trot work posting and I got reminded to keep my eyes up and my collarbone long. When I did that, I screwed up my posting mechanic which was annoying, so we focused on leaving my posting mechanic alone from my knee to my sternum and instead working on just influencing where my head was placed on my body. This has been a long time issue of mine so none of it was surprising, but TC felt way better with my new position so hopefully this time it will stick. Fingers crossed! 

We discussed what we had gone over last time, which was a focus on longitudinal balance. I told her that TC was tough for me to feel anything on, especially his longitudinal balance. It was infuriating to go ride my client's PSG horse, a horse who I say would lean on barbed wire if you'd let her, and feel the MOMENT that the horse lost her balance. 

TC is just super polite and doesn't change anything about the connection or the feeling under you when he loses balance, he just drops his withers a bit. She challenged me to focus on other things, can I feel his front feet landing softer? can I feel his hind legs better when he's balanced? can I feel anything under my seat or thigh? TC may not tell me about it in the typical ways, but I will be able to figure it out over time. I think this is a major goal of mine this fall and something that will be key to making the return to Third level for us. 

He's too cute, I have to look at him

She said she wanted to play with that in sitting trot more but that first we should canter him. I put him in left lead canter and he was a bit balky but not too bad, definitely worse there than at home so I let her know that he was still figuring out how to canter there. 

For the left, she wanted him to reach more to the left rein so encouraged me to leg yield him off my outside leg into my inside rein and almost encourage him to fall a bit that way. She likes to show the horses (well, horses like TC) that they can find balance and stability in reins by setting themselves up to lose a little bit of balance laterally and then letting them find the rein they're hiding behind. She's really good at navigating the connection issues in a rather simple way, I really like that! 

To the right, he felt fan-freaking-tastic to me so he was probably on the forehand. I told her as such and she agreed that he could carry a bit more weight behind. She thought it was that he wasn't reaching so much with his left (outside) front leg and that was interesting to me. I've always been told that they should snap the outside front leg off the ground quickly but I never thought about the reach there. She encouraged me to use my outside thigh to bring his outside front leg more forward. 

WOW that helped so much and I felt like I had a lot more collection to play with. Definitely something I'm going to play with at home. 

Learning to reach with that left front leg

Reaching for the left rein, I love it

We took a break and then talked about the sitting trot. She wanted me to imagine his back as a trampoline and to help him understand how to push up against my seat a bit. Against is the wrong word... but we talked about how on a trampoline, if you want it to bounce you higher, you stay a little stiffer in your joints vs if you want it to stop bouncing you, you absorb the bounce in your joints. Could I allow my seat to be heavier to help him find a little more bounce to encourage him to raise is back? She said that might help vs thinking suction (I already think so much suction with this horse if it were possible to lift him off the ground, we'd be in the circus already). 

I told her I was very unfit, and I am. This summer has been tough to put TC and myself first because two of my main clients were going for some big things (upper level pony club rating and USDF Silver medal, both succeeded but I sacrificed a lot for that to happen). I'm now back in a program for developing my own fitness but I'm still six months away from feeling actually fit enough to ride my exhausting horse. 

That was okay, we did a lot of trot walk transitions working on getting a good quality trot and then giving us both a break. The first bit of sit trot to the left was tough on both of us. She pointed out that I needed to be able to add leg and not have his balance change and I was struggling to find the timing for that. 

We took a break and then went to the right and I really figured it out! I had to be quick to recycle the energy that my leg was creating but being quick without letting the aids get chaotic was tough to figure out without my once strong core helping me out. Definitely putting that at the top of my fitness list. 

This is a very different look for my horse and I am
HERE FOR IT, even triangles and IFV wow okay

Sitting this trot is no joke

We let him be done after that and just chatted. I found her after my lesson to give her money and we had another fun conversation where she showed me some horses. We talked about clients and how tricky it can be to teach professions and take lessons as a professional. So far I really feel like she's ready to be creative, think outside the box, and let me be involved in my horse's training. 

So that's exciting! We'll see how things go over the next week. TC got his teeth done on Wednesday, we have some plans for next week that may or may not pan out, and then next weekend, we have the saddle fitter out again. I am not comfortable buying the saddle or ordering one through this brand so we will either give the saddle back or see if the fitter can get it fitting better and then we'll do another trial month. 

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!