Responsive

TC was really great in our last lesson! And it was such a good lesson. We'd been schooling a bunch of the Second and Third level things from our past and I was pretty pleased by how he was feeling in the half passes, and I had started really drilling the half steps and the canter to walk transitions. 

But coming to Kate with those things felt very... this lesson with Tracey in 2013. Wow, blast from the past rereading that. I think I might have glossed over this part in that post, but I vividly remember going into that lesson talking a big game about how we were schooling X and Y and really needed to work on Z in order to move up to Prix St George. And then she brought us back to the basics. 

Looking good! My left hand remains like this,
but that's fine, we'll work on it

Pivo doesn't record very well during lessons oh well

Thirteen years later, I've learned my lesson. Because when Kate and I talked about what to work on in this lesson, I mentioned two things:

1. I think TC waits until I'm about to get after him for not responding to my leg... to respond to my leg. So he's late off the aid and even if I do a bunch of transitions, he seems to know when I'm about to swat him. 

2. He reins back SO SLOWLY oh my god, he inches backwards like a snail. 

Neither of those things are hugely problematic, they don't feel all that related to the half pass or the canter to walk necessarily, but responsiveness is a huge issue with this horse that I want to address. I'm not looking to go back to where we were before, with him feeling kinda blah and me having to like, drag him through movements. 

Trail rides have been fun lately

Sure enough, the exercises we did got him so responsive and easy to ride that clearly the movements I was struggling with were not going to be the issue! 

We changed how I was asking for things first. I rode on a square with quarter turns on the forehand at each corner and I was to ask him for the turn first with my seat, which I had not been doing. Do less with my leg, so then when my leg does come on, he's had ample time to at the very least prepare to do the movement. Then I was to ride a full 360 degree turn if I didn't get the response that I wanted, steadily adding a bit of pressure with my whip (light taps getting harder) until he was really moving around. Then go back to the quarter turns. 

The same type of increasing aid in my transitions to trot, ask with my seat first, then slowly close the leg, then slowly adding harder and harder taps until he was really moving, then settle into a trot that was more appropriate. This made a huge difference for me, because I get pretty emotional about any sort of blah feeling moving forward because of our past, and having to really smack him for it is a no-go for me mentally. But by the time I've gotten to a true "smack" with the whip, he's had so much time to get his butt moving that it's like brother, you could have avoided this. And we really didn't have to get to anything close to that. It was like he thought I could increase forever and he was like oh shit she just doesn't stop, I gotta go. 

We both appreciate the shade though

As we were doing these walk to trot transitions, we inevitably had to do trot to walk transitions, and I got called out on those pretty immediately. I let him die in those transitions. I really didn't think I did, because he stays pretty well up to my hand and stays nicely under himself, but what he does is he kind of braces against the back edge of my aid. So sure physically he's right there, but my aid is doing a lot of the heavy lifting to keep him there, vs him being more in self carriage and on my seat. 

So we explored slowing down very slowly, verrry slowly asking his trot to get smaller and smaller until he was in walk, and sometimes pushing him out of it. Which I thought I was already doing pretty well, but I needed to be even pickier about it. There's a slight pushing back he does when he's like, quietly dislodging from my seat to predict that we're going to walk, and since I'm actively asking for walk, that just feels like obedience, but it's not! 

This girl has been okay, had a bad
reaction to her chemo pill but is
recovering

After working on those transitions, we did some reining back work. The idea was the same, take about four seconds to go from zero aid to the perfect rein back aid, then slowly tap on his shoulder, increasing slowly and steadily with taps until he is reining back in the way I want him to. And then we took it a step further and went into second gear reining back (even faster) so that I knew I had it. 

He was so funny, at one point I started to set up for the reinback and he got himself so balanced that he decided to offer a jambette, silly boy. We talked a little bit about his posture - he tends to curl a little in the rein back and we do want to fix that. But I'm focusing a lot on the responsiveness, which does depend on the balance, don't get me wrong, but I figured that I'd address the curling once we got the responsiveness down a few days in a row. 

Having a pet with cancer is brutal,
but with complications it's even worse

We did a bit of trot after this and he was QUITE forward, it was so much fun. He was almost... too forward. He kinda left a few times, not in a bolt, but definitely too far out in front of me. And that's when we started talking about how, he's kind of like a stereotypical mediocre white man in corporate america. 

He kind of thinks my ideas are not worth acting on, except then he'll take my ideas (e.g. being forward) and propose them at another time and I'm supposed to just go along with it because I guess I did want him to do that. 

He's annoyed when I'm late (e.g. I get left behind when he zips off) but when he's late (e.g. to my aid), I'm rude for pointing it out.

He complains endlessly about having to do his job (e.g. being slow into the arena, trying to get us to turn to the trails instead of the arena) and then still expects a promotion (e.g. cookies, I frequently have to say "you haven't DONE anything").

And maybe he's a bit red-pilled, because he thinks that I should stop trying to "lead" and let him "lead" but he's a terrible leader because all he wants to do is stand in the shade and ask for me to give him cookies. 

Anyway, my homework is to start bullying him a little more like I already bully (in a professional way) the men at my job. My ideas are good, we should act on them now, we will both be on time, you are to follow my lead on things where I am the subject matter expert (he doesn't know nearly as much about dressage as I do). 

Excuse me, I haven't once said the
word synergy

We touched on the canter and it was a bit more of the same kind of thing, keep him on my seat. And then we had a bit of time left and I asked Kate about how TC likes to fall out to the right when tracking left. It's super manageable, way better than it was before, but again it's like he's leaning on my aid. From the outside he looks straight, but I have to work to keep him there. Better than him flying through the aid, but not good enough. 

She had me imagine that there was a squishy piece of foam between my right rein and his neck, and that by pressing my rein into it (so not actually touching his neck), I could push him around on a 15 meter circle. If he didn't turn, I was to do the increasing taps on his right shoulder, and also focus on drawing him in with my inside rein to show him that there was room there. We alternated between circles and then riding down the long side, and it felt WAY better. He was much easier to steer and I didn't feel like I had to do so much management!

I had to screenshot this because it's applicable even
to this silly sport

It was such a great lesson and then I immediately went out of state! But my rider (who also rides with Kate) rode TC twice over the weekend and she does such a nice job with him. I can't wait to get back on and ride him and work on this stuff! 

Also, so cute, I didn't get pictures, but I let Rico out in TC's paddock when I was riding TC and he rolled in TC's sand pile (but not his? ugh) and then sniffed around the whole paddock. So I think I'm going to do that more often! TC was beside himself but too bad, so sad, Rico gets whatever he wants. 

Do Less

I really need to do a lot of updates but I keep writing them and then not posting them. So today I'm going to talk about my lesson with Kate and then we'll eventually get to the other stuff. Rico is great just to get that out of the way. I think every blog post should have that written first. 

TC has been really good recently. Not great, but good. He had some down time this summer because my little cat went through a health crisis - she was finally diagnosed with small cell lymphoma (a slow moving cancer in her GI and liver) and is doing much better on her medication, but TC has been on the back burner and will unfortunately stay there until she's stabilized. 

TC with his new fly mask

Much of my life looks like this right
now as we try to get her stabilized on
medication + put weight back on

Just as I'm starting to be able to breathe again after Jade's diagnosis, TC decides he wants to see the vet for his eyeballs, so I had to call the emergency vet out one day because his eyes were swollen, red, and had a ton of discharge. He got eye ointment 3x a day for a week and then has been fine. I tell you, I'm not doing much clicker training under saddle anymore, but for things like this, so grateful to have that tool. He went from being very tall to letting you put the ointment in his eyes while loose in his stall. 

THEN we start to come back to work and I have a vacation planned. So I finally just broke down and had my trusty rider ride him. She is a fabulous up and coming young rider who is riding at the PSG level on her own horse, she rides TC so beautifully and she refuses to get wrapped up in his dumb games. So she rode him three times last week, then I decided to keep the momentum going with a lesson today.

Said vacation included riding on this sea plane!

I called him "eyeballs" for a while

As I said, TC has been good, not great. Like we're doing all the stuff, he's doing shoulder-in, haunches-in, half pass. We're doing walk to canter and canter to walk transitions, some counter canter work. I've been working on a little half step to keep him better engaged. You know, we're DOING stuff. This has been really amazing, don't get me wrong, he feels better than he has in years. 

But he doesn't feel like... FABULOUS. Which at least when I was riding with my previous trainer (a couple trainers ago), I was told to come to terms with. TC is not a high quality horse the way that Rico is or some of my former clients' horses. He's a big, loose mover, but the quality just isn't there the way that it is in a purpose bred horse. "Get over it" was what I was told. 

Except that if he's a little luggy or a little blah in the connection, it's not that fun to ride. And I feel like such a jerk saying that because a year or two ago I would have killed to be working on his lateral work again, or the canter work like this. But I've found myself this summer looking more forward to trail rides than to arena rides. So I figured I'd take some lessons and call on my rider more often to help push TC and I past this luggy part. 

Rico looking AMAZING with all his
dapples, btw TC is only an inch taller
than him, wth

Eyeballs eyeing the cows

So today was TC and my first lesson since Kate was out in person in May (just before all my cat drama started). Kate had ridden him and it was like magic, TC was so so sharp to my aids and so together and the best part about it was that HE was super excited about work. 

I want to be able to get him there myself, but I 1) am fully immersed in stereotypical amateurdom right now (mostly just not being fit to ride) and 2) have such an emotional history with this horse that it makes riding him really tricky for me sometimes. Especially when I have to sharpen him up. It's like I'm flooded with the idea of here we go again vs understanding that he can be trained, we fixed the underlying issues that were causing his balking (and if we didn't, I have to work him to find out that his balking is back, and then we'll go to back the vet). 

We started on a square in walk, with Kate wanting me to ride shoulder-in from corner to corner, asking him to halt in shoulder-in. For a horse who was wanting to stop the whole time, having to halt in shoulder-in was surprisingly difficult. It required him to organize himself better and he's not a particularly tidy animal when it comes to his legs and body. 

We talked a lot about the sharpness to the aids since I feel like this is going to be our biggest issue for a while. TC is responsive to the aids, but not sharp to them. And I fall into the trap of it being good enough, especially good enough with a little nagging here and there to keep him from stopping. Kate encouraged me to evaluate how he felt from 1-10, with 10 being extremely sharp, and to also stop nagging/just let him stop. It's a lesson I've had before and will continue to require for the rest of my life. I asked Kate to please record a ringtone or something, toss up some audio on spotify maybe? something that just progressively asks me whether I am doing more work than my horse, so that I could listen to it while riding. Or maybe I'll print out and laminate some signs for myself around the arena. 

TC also got some bombproofing

And I climbed all over him

From there, we continued to address the sharpness with transitions, I was to halt in the corner of our square, then ask TC to trot to the next corner into a halt. If TC didn't respond to my leg aid, I was to tap him lightly, then show him the whip and tap him harder. TC figured this out VERY quickly and was much easier to ride the rest of the lesson. I did discover that some of my hesitation to really demand this is that I get a little left behind sometimes because I am woefully unfit for riding right now and I felt guilty not staying with him when I'm asking him to be forward. 

Kate pointed out that it wouldn't happen if he was reliably forward, and I also decided that like... I'm not even 10% of this horse's body weight, I'm not pulling on him or slamming on his back when it happens, I'm just getting slightly out of balance behind him. So he can deal with it? He works 5 days per week for an hour, two of those days being trail rides? Just handle it bro. 

Because he's literally a kids horse now,
that's my 6yo niece on him bareback on
the trails without me leading him (because
he bites me)

They even played in the sprinklers
together and he loved it

I had really wanted to work on the canter with Kate because I had done some changes about a month ago and while (very excitingly, I am very excited about this) they were all clean, they were also quite downhill. Which granted, was how they used to be too. I definitely want to get the changes better quality and start playing with multiples eventually, but clearly we are not quite there yet. Especially on the left lead, TC feels quite downhill and when I ask him with my aids to sit down a bit, he either quits or props with his hind legs. 

Kate had me alternate between shoulder out to haunches-in, to shoulder-in in canter. I'd done a little half pass on him in canter about a month ago but haven't really done much lateral work in canter at all. Right now the canter feels more like survival than work. But this work completely changed things for us. Not only did he feel more uphill, it kind of distracted me from babying him about the canter. Like he can sustain a canter for longer than I thought. And it also let us have a few discussions about what to do when he breaks. I'm supposed to scoot him forward - and I tend to not let him break. I get too involved in hoiking him along and then that's just how we canter. 

We talked a bit about how sometimes with these horses that are good like this, there are not a lot of training opportunities. Like he's doing a good job, he's responsive enough, he's collected enough, he's supple enough. And especially if I'm intervening when there's a chance he won't be quite right, that leaves me zero time to actually train him to be better. He needs to make a mistake, be asked not to make that mistake, then be allowed to make the mistake again and choose not to, then be rewarded for the right choice. Not prevented from making the mistake in the first place and not be rewarded for anything because I'm like eh it was fine. 

Once I had scooted him forward for breaking a couple of times from canter, the canter felt WAY more rideable and way better. Like he was taking me much more seriously and I could just focus on the exercise instead of thinking so much about the horse under me. 

He's learned to stand still a bit better
for his kids when grooming too

Lots of tractor work recently for me

Our last bit of work was some more in the trot. I felt like I had plenty in canter to work on - mostly lateral work and just letting him break, I want to try that for a couple of weeks and see where we are. But the trot historically has been quite difficult for me. We did an exercise that hurt my brain - a figure-8 where one circle was shoulder-in and one was shoulder out. Then we did an even worse exercise that hurt my brain even more, I can't even remember it, it was a ton of lateral work all in walk. 

The idea in the lateral work is again to get him just trucking along on his own. I want to help too much and get my legs all doing stuff. I have a LOT of work to do in this department, I feel so awkward in the lateral work now after not doing it for so long. Sometimes it feels like my upper body is just doing stuff on its own and then I'm like hey wait a minute, why am I collapsing like that. 

The other thing I need to work on is giving him more support with my left rein when tracking right. That is the hand I like to pull on, but I've definitely overcompensated for the pulling by not really having it connect. So when we do our lateral work to the right, he doesn't stand up so well on the left front because there's no support there for him. Instead, he folds his neck in half to the right and juts the base of his neck to the left. Once I had him straighter, he felt way way better. 

Little cat taking advantage of my policy
with old/sick animals: they can do what
they want, Rico is proud I'm sure

All in all it was a fabulous lesson. I feel so lucky to have Kate helping me with my silly gray horse. I'm genuinely looking forward to my next ride on him! Hopefully as things with my little cat stabilize (right now she's getting blood work every 2 weeks as we try to get her liver values back to normal, hopefully we can get to a point where she only needs blood work every 2-3 months!) I can ramp up my lessons and maybe even some training rides from my rider so that we can get TC into more work without me having to ride so much since I do need to do my job. 

This fall may be a little wonky as my priority stays with my little cat, but I'm really hoping to set us up well for next year. Because I think I've decided I'd really like to get this horse back to the show ring. Even if it's just at Training level or something. And honestly just for the pictures and so that I can get my amateur status finalized and put my first ride as an amateur into my record. Also I had bought a new coat I haven't worn in the show ring yet, a travesty. 

Another Leadline Adventure

The kiddo did her second ever leadline show this weekend and it was again, SO ADORABLE. 

This one was a small, very casual show hosted by the resident pony club at Kate's barn. I didn't pay much attention to the main ring, I wasn't riding, but it looked really well run and everyone had a blast!

I did, however, pay attention to the trail class, which doubled as the leadline class. It was all set up in a small ring with seven obstacles. The first was to weave through cones, then to pick up a bean bag and put it into a muck bucket. Then opening a gate. Picking up a flag and putting it in a cone. Taking a letter to a mailbox, halting and reining back in a line of poles, and standing on a tarp. 

TC would have dominated. And by dominated I mean destroyed half the obstacles trying to make everyone laugh. Glad he wasn't invited. He'll do an obstacle show in early April! 

How unbelievably cute is the show outfit?

Miss Kate was very kind to lend us Elrond, who was far more suitable to the class than Sunny Horse who has honestly been mildly neglected by me this fall due to being busy at work. He is getting a much deserved winter off from being ridden by the kid as well, she is riding double with me sometimes but I'm trying to let him chill a bit. He thinks she's a *lot* to deal with. 

Elrond thought she was great though. The worst thing she did was practice her posting, which is still a bit erratic and overenthusiastic. And all he had to do was walk incredibly slowly and decide that standing on the tarp was unacceptable despite standing on it earlier when one of Kate's kids took him through the course to make sure he would do everything. Best day ever. 

Walking over to get her borrowed pony

And it was for her too! She got a RIBBON. A rainbow ribbon. And she was once again the star of the show with everyone wanting to talk to her and ask her what her name was and how old she was, to which she'd say things like "I drove here in my black car" or "this is Elrond, Miss Kate's pony" or "I have bows" which are at least true, given that at the last show she told everyone that Flounder was her pony. 

My brother and sister in law (and littlest niece) had the best time too. They asked how many of these we can do a year and when the next one was. I said well, the show season is over unless you want to winter in southern California or Florida, which seems a bit much for a leadline kid. But we'll definitely be back in the spring. My littlest niece (4 months old) thought the whole show was a blast, I've never seen her smile so much! Pony kid number two, excellent, my master plan is slowly coming into effect. 

Flounder the Lead Line Horse

So, when I saw all the little kids at the show in May, I started planting the seed that my niece could do her first horse show at the October show. 

Luckily for me, the kid is still unbelievably horse crazy, so on Friday midday, my brother, dad, and older niece drove down to the show! 

LOOK AT HER BOWS

The kid was immediately in her element. She knew she was there to show Flounder and wanted to do it immediately rather than waiting the excruciating 24 hours until the leadline on Saturday afternoon.

She spent all of Friday afternoon watching the various rings, pointing out which horses looked like the horses at the ranch, and learning all about different colors and markings from me. My brother even asked some questions about the different types of sports and what was going on. And my dad was an old pro, keeping track of the horses in the hunter derby and saying things such as "I think this is our winner back for the handy, this one got an 83 in the first round, oh wait, no I think there was one that got an 87, so this one is in second place so far" um okay wow dad.

Saturday morning they came out to watch me in my classes. I got so much clapping from the kid and after every class (I had three), she got to hop on Flounder and ride him back to the barn. She whined a little bit but was mostly really good about being patient and watching the show. Luckily there were some great areas for kids, she found our Halloween decorations really fun to play with and she also got to run around in a grass field above the show while we watched it. 

Watching the hunter derby

Literally so much in her element

Eventually it was time to get her ready. She got her breeches on (which I didn't know would happen, she likes to wear patterned leggings and call them breeches, but I think she saw that everyone was wearing tan breeches), we put her paddock boots on, got her garter straps (which I had to punch holes in lol she's so tiny) on. 

My sister-in-law ordered a show shirt and bows for her hair. The show shirt will definitely fit for a long time, it was fairly big on her! We had some time so we went over to the tack shop and found a belt that matched her show shirt. The tack lady asked her about horses and I've never heard the kid so talkative to strangers. She talked to everyone at that show, told them about Flounder and her Sunny Horse back at home too. 

I have no others without her face in
them so here's me again

Look at this fish!

Finally she let me braid her hair, put in her bows, and we got her helmet on. We put her on Flounder and led her around a bit. I had my brother help my dad FaceTime my mom and my SIL (who was up taking care of her father with my youngest niece) so that they could see the leadline debut. 

Soon, it was time to go into the big jumper ring. She was one of three kids in the class and it was ADORABLE. There was a huge crowd because it was right before the speed stake. The kids got to walk around and one kid (who was older than her) trotted a little bit and immediately my niece was like I WANT TO TROT and we had to tell her no, you're two and this is not your horse. 

After walking around once or twice in each direction, we were called in to line up in front of the judge. The judge then asked each kid what their name was, what their pony's name was, and what color their pony was. 

Look at me looking for my next fence and not at
the ground where I will definitely end up one day

Definitely splurged on some pro photos!

My niece is two and a half. She was the youngest kid there and she got asked her questions first, which meant that her answers were hilarious. She didn't want to tell him her name, but she was very enthusiastic to tell him what Flounder's name was. In response to the question about Flounder's color, what came out sounded like "SunnyHorsepalominoAuntMimirideswithmeonmySunnyHorse" *deep breath* "Flounder is white and gray" 

Granted, we didn't practice Flounder's specific color so that was pretty close!

For her efforts, she got a big blue ribbon and a pink and white stuffed pony. We got a truly insane number of photographs of her AND we got video of the entire thing. My mom was so annoyed she didn't come down (it was on her, she was invited! But she thought the leadline would be boring, not like her daughter was also showing or anything...). 

Apparently when the kiddo got home, she told everyone she knew about her horse show and has been wearing her horse show belt with everything she owns. Amazing. She does her next leadline in a couple of weeks!

I love this one so much

I was going to write a third post but there's honestly not much more to report from this show! Unfortunately for me, there were no more pro classes for the rest of the weekend. But it was still fun! I stayed in the .80s and did one class both days (I was supposed to do two the first day but they.. eliminated... me...? It was fine, I got to do my second class). 

It was such a good time moving up and feeling so confident. I didn't have a panic attack, rode way better in the ring than expected, and had a blast the entire time.

The whole weekend was just amazing. I love my barn, I love my (technically not my but I like to dream) fish, I love my best friend, I love this sport, and I love having grooming! Can't wait for the next one!

Jumping Fish

WOW I am behind, so much has happened and I'm hoping I can use this week and the next week to catch up!

Catch up like Flounder and I catching up on time
in the jumper ring a few weeks ago!

It was good to be back!

Two weeks ago, we were at another hunter/jumper show! It came at such a great time, I was able to hand off all of my work and actually take a total of 4 days off of work (Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Monday for a recovery day). I didn’t even bring my laptop down! 

I spent all day Tuesday preparing to hand off my projects and then managed to ride TC. Unfortunately over the weekend, my back injury got worse, so I ended up taking it easy on TC that day and then not riding him or the pony Wednesday before I left. I wanted to preserve my back for the show, but did decide to hand off the ride on Flounder to someone else if I found that my back wasn’t up for it. I have a doctor’s appointment coming up for it and am taking it easy until then. 

On Wednesday it seemed like I might not ride at all. Luckily Kate did a warmup round on Flounder (the entire barn except the two horses I was hauling got down there on Tuesday), so I didn’t need to ride him AND he got a solid trainer ride on him in the arena I was going to be jumping in for the weekend. But I woke up on Thursday feeling surprisingly good and managed to ride the whole weekend!!

He is so cute

His cute little knees, I think I fucked this one up
but he didn't care lol

I opted to just do the jumpers this time. Flounder doesn’t have a change and is just not super competitive in the pro hunter divisions. Plus, I think the jumpers are really fun, the courses are so interesting! 

On the first day I opted to just do the .70 meter jumpers again. The first class had a jump off and we were definitely quite rusty. I went way too slowly and Flounder got annoyed that I wasn’t riding him forward to the fences, so he popped a fence down to let me know that I needed to pick up the pace or risk more rails. In my second class, I asked Kate if I should go faster and she said yes. Then as I was cantering to the first fence I heard her say that I needed to go even faster. So I went as fast as I could, which ended up being a completely normal pace. 

In true amateur hour fashion, for some reason I thought it was optimum time jumpers, so I took the long way around one of the turns noticing that I was a little ahead of time. It was a speed class though (why do they have speed classes at this low of a level?!), but we still were quick enough to get second place out of something like seventeen rounds! 

This absolutely made my day and then we were done before 9am, amazing! This was our first time having grooms (my first time in like 20 years!) and it was absolutely worth it. I got to hop off, change out of my show clothes and into normal clothes, and go watch everyone in our barn ride every day. It was so great. I had a little bit of sticker shock at first but then after the first day when I had horses unloaded from my trailer, my trailer unloaded and cleaned out, and then was parking after hauling in 15 minutes before… wow, absolutely worth it. This goes in the budget for shows from now on! 

He's literally so adorable over fences, no joke, Kate
clicker trained him to jump, he was actually a failed
gymkhana horse!

Look at all of his toes!

On the second day, I asked if I could move up to the .80s for my second class because there was only one pro class per height (and then no more pro classes after that, ugh). Kate said yes and so I did! It was good to have the .70s first to give me some confidence riding more forward. I managed to go around clean and fast for a fourth place ribbon.

It was my first .80s class on Flounder but he was a star. I honestly didn't even notice the jumps had gotten bigger! We went clean and clear and this time landed ourselves in THIRD place out of a whole lot of people. Such an amazing little fish!!

Friday evening, my brother, niece, and father came down to watch the hunter derby and stay overnight so that my niece could do her very first leadline class on Saturday afternoon. More on that tomorrow!

Rose in May Part 3: I'm a Dressage Trainer Folks

After Flounder had a super confidence boosting ride with his kid on Saturday morning, I hopped on! I was so grateful that I'd had the ability to do that and that she'd ridden him so tactfully. 

Kate had me jump one fence in warm up without much trotting or cantering. I think I was in there for maybe 2 minutes at most. That was the other great thing about this plan: I eliminated the warm up and went in cold. 

I loved these standards so much, I decided to get
really close to one of them

Good thing we did that because I proceeded to have the best round of my show so far. We dropped a couple of rails because my riding still wasn't quite where I wanted it to be, but I didn't lose my head at all. I only had a little bit of tunnel vision and I came out really pleased with even more information. 

There were some confounding variables, sure. I definitely felt more comfortable in the jumper ring just because we don't have changes and it's tough to make horse distances in the hunters (there were no combinations in the jumper classes for this show/level). I also liked how the courses were more complicated, as much as I was concerned I'd panic and not remember the course, it ended up being easy to remember and there weren't so many long lines that made me second guess myself. 

But I think the lack of warm up was huge: I had absolutely nothing to trigger that visceral fear in me before going into the ring. Warm ups... apparently I'm totally fine with being mowed down in the dressage warm up, but someone gets a little close to me in the jumping warm up and I'm not okay. I mean... come to think of it, TC has always been the most enthusiastic horse in the warm up ring soooo maybe we're the ones terrorizing other people rather than being terrorized ourselves. Oh no. Oh noooo. 

He is the cutest

That wasn't my last class on Saturday though! I participated in the Hack and Splash later that afternoon. The class was a hunter hack class to benefit a charity, the catch was that we had to carry around a cup of water with us while we were in the class. Flounder had done it before and the fences were small, so I was game. 

I got my cup of water and went into the arena with 8 or so? other horses. There were 19 total in the class and we'd been split into two groups. Water was measured based on how much we lost out of our cup and the least amount lost won. 

As a dressage rider, the idea of riding one handed in a jump saddle, including over jumps, was concerning. Although in my last jumping lesson, I mysteriously started pulling on the right rein instead of the left, so I did jump some fences with my right hand behind my back. So you could say I was prepared. 

I don't have pictures of the fun class just yet, but
I'll use it for a WW when I do get them!

Shockingly, we did very well! After cantering the second direction, I realized that I'd actually not lost any water. How insane would it be to get through the whole thing without losing ANY water? Well, that almost happened as I took the first jump and no water spilled out. Holy shit. Buuuut I saw a short one for the second fence and got a little concerned about the water, causing Flounder to chip rather than just quietly shorten his step. I lost what ended up being 0.1 centimeters of water out of my cup.

We went to stand in the crowd and everyone told us how impressed they were that we hadn't lost any water over the first jump! I was like well, Flounder gives an amazing feeling over the fence. But it also felt REALLY good to be able to do this, clearly I had a lot of stability in the tack on the flat and over fences, and as someone who has, no joke, absolutely complained about how short my stirrups are in the jump tack EVERY SINGLE TIME I RIDE, I was pretty proud. 

The 0.1 centimeters lost was enough to win the class!! I got a very cute tumbler with the horse park's logo on it for my efforts and Flounder got a lot of carrots and cookies (I mean, he got lots of them all weekend). 

Such a fast fish! Note: we were not fast

Kate and I discussed and decided to end the weekend with just one jumper class the next morning. I was kind of torn because I was like... if the first course goes badly I would want to go in again, but if it goes well, I could always scratch. Kate said she'd rather us wish we'd done more, which was the right decision, so we just signed me up for the one class. 

This time I'd be warming Flounder up myself, so that would bring the warm up back into the picture, more information. It was a different warm up though, much larger than the hunter warm up. 

We didn't do a ton in warm up, just three jumps and then Kate asked if I felt okay to go over. I said yes, I feel as good as I'm going to feel. Kate asked what else we could do in warm up to make me feel better and I said that I could use like 40 Advil. She said that it was long past that time, which was correct. But seriously jumping that many days in a row completely destroyed my body! 

Such a good fish

The last course was amazing. I could not have asked for anything better. 

The course started out with a hilarious moment that made me laugh as I cantered to the first fence, that might have made the difference. Basically, I heard the buzzer and then glanced to the board to see if my name was up there, but it wasn't. I thought it had been the day before, it didn't matter since I wasn't competing for real, but I then second guessed if that was my buzzer. I really didn't want to be rude and start jumping if it wasn't my turn just yet. 

I yelled for Kate because again, it didn't matter, "is that my buzzer?" and she yelled back that it was. The announcer then said "yes, Megan, that's your buzzer" and I said "sorry, it's been a long week!" and he said "it's okay, she's a dressage trainer folks" which he'd found out when asking me why my number was upside down as I walked in. And probably assumed when I was complaining about my stirrups being short at the gate earlier. 

I laughed the entire way down to the first fence and then potentially put in the best round of my life. It wasn't perfect but I was able to ride just like I did at home and not lose my head. As I landed off the last jump, I was grinning, it was SO MUCH FUN! I can't remember the last time I had fun DURING a round. 

What an amazing way to end my first show! And more importantly, what a great information gathering weekend it was. 

Rose in May Part 2: My Mental Game

The next day, I was in the same division with a hunter class and then a hunter undersaddle class. I decided to braid Flounder on Thursday night and he looked AMAZING for Friday. I mean, as amazing as one can look when one decides to rub out half one's mane reaching through the fence for grass sprigs. 

LOOK how adorable he is, please note the butt
wrinkles, the nose, and the sweet ears!

I took Flounder over to warm up and once again, he was THRILLED to be at the horse show. But this time, the warm up was busy. It was set up in such a way that we didn't have a ton of space, they really had no choice in how to set it up as it was definitely the smallest warm up on the property. There were three fences with almost no room to go between them and then the rail had one and a half tracks between the edge of the standard and the rail. 

That would have been fine and was the day before, but I ended up having a few incidents that triggered some deep fears in me, apparently. Flounder was FINE, but we got pinned on the rail once, had to slam on the brakes to let someone pass, and had some trouble figuring out how to get to the jumps with people in the way. I wasn't actually, logically afraid because it's Flounder, but my body slowly pumped full of adrenaline. 

It came to a head when I was passing a jump at the canter and someone cantered up behind me and jumped the jump at the same time. I suddenly broke him to trot and felt panic flow through me. I wanted OUT of the arena. I went to Kate and she helped me remember that I was on FLOUNDER and not any of my green, spooky training client horses from years ago... It was okay. 

I don't KNOW why I'm like this lol

But it was not okay. I got into the arena and I had a similar round to the ones I had in 2010 when I was taking the young stallion around his first events while simultaneously working with a LOT of naughty/green horses over fences. I used to tell people that show jumping was my weakest phase and it was... but I didn't actually realize WHY it was my weakest phase. 

Turns out I was having panic attacks in the show ring. And, now that I know what they are (thank you to the worst year of my life, 2018), I could correctly identify that I had another one on Friday at this show on Flounder. I can only describe it as feeling TERRIFIED despite there being absolutely no threat. Like I knew there was no threat, Flounder didn't do anything wrong, he jumped all the jumps and didn't stop or even shake his head... 

But again I can't emphasize how terrified I was for absolutely no reason whatsoever. I had horrible tunnel vision and couldn't take any real breaths. I was shaking and basically only able to steer around the course, which felt completely out of control. Flounder is the best and he took care of me to the best of his abilities. Just like before, I made it around without forgetting my course or really doing anything *too* badly. 

Watching the video I was just thinking "eh, maybe don't put him to nothing so much, Megan" but there was nothing shocking about the way I looked from the outside. And that's when it all came together for me, the realization that no one knew I was having panic attacks in the show ring because I genuinely just look kind of normal, or maybe a bit shitty but not unreasonably shitty. 

Jumping around with Flounder wondering wtf
is going on up there

I come out of the ring shaking and honestly have almost no memory of what exactly happened between entering the ring and getting back to the barns maybe? I know based on the messages I sent to my friends and what I wrote in my journal that I resisted feeling what I was feeling and instead tried to deflect. Kate made me feel my feelings and walked me through some breathing exercises and helped me get myself grounded. 

Pausing here I just want to say how much I appreciate Kate. It would have been easy for her, like my former trainers, to say something like "hey that wasn't so bad, don't worry about it! Try not to put him to nothing and keep your leg on, cool, have fun in your flat class and I'll catch up with you later." That would have been acceptable and it was what happened for a VERY long time with many different trainers. I didn't have words to describe what was happening to me and I had an ego like most young horse trainers did, so even if I did have words, I probably wouldn't have admitted it. This time though, my trainer is my best friend and even if she wasn't, she has an amazing ability to see through all the bullshit. I love that about her and this is why I'm choosing to come back into jumping now, because I can do it with her. 

Once I'd calmed down, I opted out of my flat class, went back to the barn, and wrote down as much as I could about it. As much as it was very un fun to have a panic attack in the show ring, I had achieved my goal: I had information. 

The only real difference day to day was the warm up and I had definitely felt it starting in warm up. With that realization in mind, I remembered that my last 3+ shows over fences (12 years ago) had insane warmups. Whether because my trainer put a fence up 6+ inches above where we were showing to "get him to jump the shit out of them" without telling me and instead we crashed through it, or because I was dodging other horses due to being on a stallion, or because I was being stretched in every direction with clients while my horse's owner watching from the sidelines. 

The most adorable braided fish

We opted to put me into a ticketed round later that day at the same height. I warmed up much better but was still full of adrenaline from earlier. I had a much better round with only a small amount of panic, but Flounder had lost a bit of faith in me and we ended up having a stop. I felt it coming from a mile away but that panicky feeling led to me not being quick enough to make sure he made it over. We finished the course just fine though!

Despite having a mental breakdown, I remained in pretty good spirits the rest of the day. I tried really hard to stay in the moment, not make any big decisions at the show. The purpose of the show was to gather information. If I crashed and burned the rest of the show, that was information. If I was able to bounce back, that was information. There was no reason to dissect the show until it was over. The only thing I had to think about was what to do for the rest of the weekend to gather the most information.

As we sat and watched the derby, I told Kate what I wanted to do: I wanted one of her kids to take Flounder around a jumper class in the morning and then I'd do the second jumper class. 

Downtown Paso Robles is really cute!

The reasons for this were:  

1. I wanted Flounder to be guaranteed to have a confidence boosting ride and I knew I was going to be hit or miss depending on my warm up. If he stopped a bunch with me, who is to say it was me riding him to the stops or him saying "hey she was real shit yesterday and I don't want to play with her anymore" 

2. I wanted to experiment with almost no warm up for myself, have him warmed up for me

3. I wanted to eliminate any issues we might have switching rings with Flounder sometimes being a little spookier in the jumper ring

I was VERY glad to do this because Flounder got a confidence boosting ride the next morning that set him right back where he was before I let him down. I'm so grateful that Kate's student was there, she is an INCREDIBLE rider.

As much as it was no fun to realize that I couldn't give him what he needed that morning, it was great to be able to confidently put the horse first with no concern for my once fragile ego. I have no goals in this sport except to have fun and while I have a lot of strengths, clearly I have this weakness that needs to be addressed. I'm putting my future horse first by working through it before I bring him into my life and I'm putting Flounder first by happily stepping aside to let him rebuild confidence with someone who can help him with that. 

Tomorrow, I'll reveal how my last rounds at the show went!

Rose in May Part 1: Returning to the Hunters

Last weekend was a BLAST! I got to show over fences at a rated show for the first time in TWELVE YEARS and compete in a hunter class for the first time in TWENTY YEARS. 

Actually, um, I'm going to stop doing the math. This is getting depressing. 

The point is, Kate's barn goes to two really cute B rated hunter/jumper shows every year and I finally got one on my calendar! 

Omg look at this fish

My goal coming into this show was to gather as much information as I could. I didn't need to win any ribbons (given that I'm a professional, I couldn't even compete for ribbons over the weekend anyway because of the bizarre way hunter jumper shows are run) or even go around clear or even all that well for me to consider it a success. I wanted to keep my long term goal of returning to eventing very much at the forefront of my mind rather than get bogged down in being disappointed about not returning with an armful of ribbons (I mean, I could just throw TC back into the dressage ring if ribbons were what I wanted). 

The greater goal is to get my show jumping to a point where I am confident and capable. Show jumping has always been my weakest part of eventing. What better way to do so than at a hunter/jumper show where I can show 6 over fences classes in a whole weekend? Rather than spending the equivalent amount on an event and only get one show jump round and one cross country round? Especially if I was concerned that the show jump round may be bad enough where I can't move on to cross country...

And that really was a risk. You'll hear more about that tomorrow. 

The show grounds were beautiful!

We arrived too late to school Wednesday, but that was okay because Flounder has been to these shows before and we chose to keep me at a comfortably low level all weekend. I also worked clear through the week (felt very guilty asking for more time off during my first five months, they let me go to Kentucky after all... although my manager knew I was at the show and asked if he could take some stuff off my plate! I said no lol), so I left after my meetings were over on Wednesday and arrived with the last two horses around 7:30pm. 

After everyone was settled, I went to get us dinner and then Kate and I got to our hotel room to relax before passing out. I had some work to do early the next morning, so I did that while also updating my safe sport (oops) and got to the barn without too much time to spare. 

The entire time at the show I only had ONE thing to do for work that had to be done at a specific time that was during the show or could conflict with classes: I had a training from 10am to noon on Thursday. When I heard that my class began at 9:15 I thought, oh well, I will scratch and just do the ticketed rounds later in the day maybe? Or just not show that day? School later? Try to find a dressage court so I could feel at home?

But everyone told me it'd be FINE, that I could be one of the first few in the ring and that I could hand Flounder off the moment I got off. I set several alarms on my phone (one labeled POINT OF NO RETURN) where I had to immediately get off the horse and RUN to my computer. 

Me, shortly before running to my computer

My two classes were running simultaneously, so I memorized both courses (and remembered that hunter courses are so easy, I legit just memorized the first fence and then followed the flowers) with the idea that I'd do both back to back without leaving the show ring and I got into warm up. Flounder was FEELING IT but we had the warm up to ourselves for the most part so we felt our feelings and jumped some fences. Right at the end, I started getting a bit nervous about making my meeting though. 

As I was cantering around to the next fence I started saying "I'm having the FULL AMATEUR EXPERIENCE! I need to get through these two rounds ASAP so I can go to a MEETING" which I and another professional in the ring thought was hilarious. I mean, honestly the entire weekend was a masterclass in amateur hour shenanigans brought to us by me, a professional. 

The jumper ring!

I did make my meeting after two very average rounds. I was a little nervous given that I'd never shown Flounder over fences like these before and didn't put in the best rounds, but they were all mistakes I typically make at home and I mostly kept my head, so I was happy! We missed one lead in each class and I found out that our left drift was kind of ridiculous in the lines. I also discovered that Flounder REALLY has to be moving to make the horse distances and decided that I didn't give two shits about trying to make the distances. Basically, a really good first day!

My meeting went well except for the fact that I took it in my truck and my truck died due to me being dump and not turning it on but having the air running with the key turned half way. Oops. But it did allow me to teach the children later about jumping a truck. 

It was fun to be at the show after that just watching and cheering everyone on while carrying my work around with me. I went shopping (found really nice breeches at 50% off!), placed a riding warehouse order that got delivered the next day, and watched a ton of classes. Honestly it was kind of a breath of fresh air to see no horses with their noses severely behind vertical... I know every horse sport has its issues but I was generally really impressed with the way most of the horses went at this show. 

Look at that lip!

I went to sleep that night super excited for the next day! I had my list of things I wanted to improve about my rounds and no meetings to stress me out in the warm up. It was bound to be a good second day!