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. 

Grooming Clinic!

On Saturday, I attended my first ever grooming clinic! Kate has a bunch of fun clinicians coming in this year and I'm hoping to attend many of them. This one was easy to sign up for, it was reasonably priced and I didn't have to bring a horse (barns in the area are just starting to open up after our bout of EHV-1 in the area, Kate's barn didn't get hit but they also locked down for visitors, which I had a lot of respect for). 

The clinician was amazing, she was a wealth of knowledge and you could see this even by just how she laid her hands on the horses. She has so much experience with horses, grooming for one of the world's top event riders. 

I figure I could use a grooming clinic
given that I have a gray horse lol

We started off with a discussion about being compassionate and empathetic towards our horses, knowing our horses well enough where we could see even a small change in their demeanor, and knowing the people who are responsible for taking care of the barn (as these people usually see our horses way more than we do). It was such a good reminder that our horses didn't ask for this life, don't owe us anything, and can't just tell us in plain English if something is going wrong with them. 

From there, we went further into detail about noticing little things about our horses. As an aside, the clinician had people ranging from kids in the lesson program to me, an upper level dressage trainer who is also a graduate A pony clubber, she did a really fabulous job catering to everyone, but I'll probably end up skipping over some of the more basic things she spoke about just in an effort to get this post out given my ability to post to my blog right now. 

I took basically no pictures while I was
at the clinic so you'll have to settle for
Loki the Kestrel on occasion

Anyway, she taught us what she looks for when she brings a horse into the cross ties and it brought back so many memories of the fact that I think I could probably still sculpt Rico's legs out of clay with my eyes closed. Rico taught me to always know your horses' legs ridiculously well. What they do in the cold, in the heat, before and after work, and so on. 

I don't know TC's legs nearly as well, which isn't saying much because I have also obsessed over them. TC's legs get puffy in the summer if he's stabled, they are always tight in the winter or now that he lives in pasture, all year long. In the heat, the veins on his legs do pop a bit, so they can trick you into thinking he's got a split or something. He frequently scrapes up his legs/bulbs of the heel, hocks galloping out of his stall like a weirdo. The one thing I don't normally do that she recommends is to feel the feet for warmth when you bring the horse out. I guess I just haven't had that many abscesses (it's very dry out here). 

He does do this frequently though

From there, we got into the actual grooming part, talking about what supplies she likes. I loved the idea of the posture prep curry, it's actually designed to use in a specific way that warms muscles up. She showed us how to use it and I immediately wanted to buy one for TC, he loves being curried and his back gets tight, so this will be perfect. Also, my current curry comb is a bit old and gross, so it'll be nice to have a new one. 

She also likes the hands on grooming gloves for the hard to reach places and for baths. I have these and don't tend to use them, but I never considered them for baths and am curious to try for TC's next bath. She also mentions that she uses them to softly curry the legs for any fungus-y stuff that may get on there. 

She had some brush recommendations too, nothing really specific but I have a general idea of what I want to replace TC's awful brush with. His brush is fine... but it's been fine since I bought him so I think I'd like to find him some nice brushes. This one can replace the not fine ones in my trailer. 

Took a picture to remember it!

We talked a bit about how to shorten manes. I don't pull any manes anymore, so I tend to shorten them with scissors. TC's mane has destroyed two solo combs (he literally dulls new ones out within half the mane the first time we go through it), so I don't use those anymore, just scissors pointed upward toward the crest. I am BAD at it though. For manes that don't need pulling, she used a simple grooming razor blade! So that got added to my shopping list (for the record, this was not an expensive clinic and we did get a little goodie bag, I am the one making it expensive for myself). 

I'm excited about this for Sunny too, because she also showed us how to shorten longer manes with it. His tends to get a little long and stringy at the ends, so again I've been butchering it with scissors. It looks terrible. He'll be very glad when I shorten it again properly! 

A woman working for wildlife reserve
came out to put some bird boxes up at
the ranch and brought Loki with her!

We ate lunch and chatted a bit before heading into bandaging and boots. I exceeded standards on bandaging at my HA and can still wrap a mean shipping wrap with flannel (which I jokingly told the clinician was my childhood trauma) and cotton/cheesecloth. But getting to see the event boots in person was fun! I'm definitely going to think hard about which boots I want to get Future Horse #2 for cross country schooling. 

I don't use boots/wraps on TC anymore because I'm no longer paranoid about his suspensory leg given that he's harder on it in pasture than I'll ever be on perfect footing. I also have 0 time available for anything that isn't absolutely necessary most days. But it was cool to see them. 

It was also fun to watch the kids learn about bandaging. I remember so well teaching bandaging clinics, helping kids through their ratings, and prepping myself for my HA in 2009. It was great. 

Bird lady also had baby hummingbirds!

I ended up leaving before the braiding section. I was quite tired and had a jumping lesson the next day to prep for! I also had TC to get out. 

Obviously, I groomed TC to within an inch of his life when I got him out that afternoon. I curried him in the way that she recommended and he seemed to really enjoy it. I noticed a bit that he was tight on the right side of his lumbar area, so that was good to note. I don't know if I would have noticed that if I hadn't been thinking hard about the way I was currying him. 

We just hit the trails for a fun, quiet ride. I focused on the initial topic of discussion, spending the time on the trail thinking about what horses meant to me and feeling really lucky that I have such a great one right now. TC has matured so much over the years. While Rico and I felt like we were an old married couple with how much we struggled to understand each other, TC and I feel like best friends. 

I know that this change has nothing to do with the horse, but with me and how much I've grown as a horse person. I'm grateful for Rico and everything he taught me, and I'm glad I can give him a fabulous retirement. But I'm also incredibly grateful for the bond TC and I have, which is different and in some ways, way more like home than the one I had/have with Rico. It's almost sad to think that, but I think that's just what happens when you get older and wiser and more open minded? I don't know, maybe I'll write more about this later. 

Beyond just enjoying my trail ride on TC, I also thought about how lucky I feel to be part of Kate's barn. Being at the ranch means I'm not really part of a barn anymore. Not that I felt super close with my barn mates at my last barn, but it can get a little lonely being at a private facility. I'm so grateful to be able to do things like my weekly jumping lessons and clinics like this so I get the best of both worlds: the peacefulness of being on my own at the ranch, riding my sweet perfect horse bareback on the private trails, and the friendship and companionship that comes with being part of a fabulous barn. 

Sorting Out Sunny

I was excited to have the clinician stay through to Monday because I was eager to get Sunny looked at too. With his silicosis and obvious neck issues, I was hoping that she could give me some information about him.

Not sure what we were talking about
but he's so cute!

Just like with TC, she worked on him for a while on the ground with the bodywork. Sure enough, Sunny has some pretty significant nerve pain in his neck! This is something I’ve been suspecting due to his weird behavior. He is so protective of himself and he has random explosions, especially after jumps, that feel like he’s been stung by a bee or something. He has this panic button that gets hit in those explosions and he feels terrified in the moment. 

She did a bunch of work to help him out but she thinks he has some neck arthritis going on that will probably always affect him. That’s most likely due to the silicosis. She didn’t think that he was impossible though, she thinks that we can fix the explosions for sure, he’s just going to need some help. 

I only have potato quality screenshots from his
ride because the person with the nicest phone had
to run! But any video is appreciated

I got on and what a difference between Sunny and TC. I could tell that Sunny felt better, but TC was way less protective than Sunny was. I had to take a lot longer to help Sunny find the softness and the posture that TC just gave me the moment I implied that it would be a nice thing for him to do. 

But when he did start to let go, he felt SO good. Sunny has always had kind of a clunky way of moving. He’s not a big mover and doesn’t have a lot of suspension, so you’d think he was smooth to sit, but he’s kind of not. 

He felt so much looser than he normally does

Now though, he felt smooth to sit! I encouraged him to lengthen his step, something he’s not really been able to do, and he was hesitant but did end up lengthening his stride a bit! Good pony! 

He was not nearly as excited as TC was, but that’s okay. I sent the video to my mom and she said “he looks more comfortable” and he really did seem that way. He seemed a little happier and a little more relaxed, which was great to see and feel in him. Not everyone is going to be a drama queen like TC I suppose. 

Such a good pony

I’m super excited to keep doing the same work with him and to see how he feels. I figure if we stick to it through the winter, maybe he’ll feel good enough to jump in the spring without exploding. If I can swing it, I’ll ride remotely with her on him too to just keep an eye on his progress. 

Punted Down the Path

Day two was at Kate’s barn. I ended up staying at the ranch Sunday night to Monday so that I could get an early start. This time I loaded up both horses. I’ll talk about Sunny later though. 

Most interesting creature first

TC was very excited to go to a place with the pony! The pony hates him though... Sunny is skeptical of most horses (except Riot, somehow Riot has been deemed acceptable by Sunny), but Sunny especially hates TC. I think because TC is chock full of problematic optimism and therefore doesn't care that Sunny doesn't like him. If there's one thing that Sunny hates, it's friends who don't care that he hates them. 

Because the trailer is a bit small, Sunny had to go in first so that TC could have the large rear spot. So, I put Sunny in first, loaded TC up, and then Sunny squealed at him. Worried that TC somehow was able to poke Sunny's butt, I looked into the trailer and saw that the most TC could do was… look… at Sunny. Sunny thought that this was unacceptable. And knowing both of them, TC was probably staring at Sunny the entire ride to the facility while Sunny squealed and stomped his feet at him. 

This horse has always been so out behind, there
are things I want to change about his hind end still
but this is much improved! Not a cart horse anymore

When we arrived (luckily for Sunny it was only a 15 minute haul), I took TC out and put him in the round pen, then grabbed Sunny. I swapped them out and Sunny hung out in the round pen while I took TC over to the clinic. He got worked on and the clinician was super excited to see that he was feeling really good on Monday after the work on Sunday. He felt so good that it wasn’t very long before she asked for Sunny and had me get on TC. 

I handed Sunny off (I will discuss him later) and then took TC to the trailer to tack up. I came back and we started our ride! 

All the connection issues he's ever had went away
except a slight inclination to curl

We managed to get the fabulous walk that we had the day before back right away. He felt so loose and the work felt easy. We worked on the same exercises as before, but things progressed even faster than the day before. Things that I had to slowly work toward the day before were accessible from my seat. 

He felt so good that we were told to trot! And I’ve never had the horse pop into trot so excitedly on the first try. He’s been really hesitant to trot sometimes, but not this time. He needed way less aid to get him going and no aids were necessary to keep him going. That was mildly terrifying, he was just so ON and so immediately responsive. I didn't realize how much he has been just low key behind me until he wasn't. 

She had me do the same work that we did in walk in trot. TC was on it. It didn’t take too much aid to ask him to maintain his new posture, it was like he was thinking “FINALLY I can MOVE now!” 

His core is actually engaged, what a miracle

We played with asking him to push forward down the long sides and his trot got SO NICE. He popped way up in front, something that I’ve long thought I was feeling on him but now realize that I’ve never felt on him. At one point, he got so excited as we passed another horse that he transitioned into a slight passage like trot with his front end up even higher. 

I had my clicker with me and so I clicked a fair amount for the various things he was giving me. TC was so smug about it, which cracked us all up. After the first click it was like he said “about time” and took his cookie with the most hilarious facial expression. From then on he was on fire. 

After some big medium trots in each direction, he started to get tired, so I opted to be done for the day. We talked about the plan going forward and I’m so excited because she offered me remote lessons! She seemed to really love TC and thinks we have big things ahead if we stick to this work. I told her I would need some hand holding, especially in the smaller arena at home and without a crowd of people for him to show off in front of. 

Glancing into the future, I'll go into more detail
later but I'm not riding him this far up on purpose

I put TC in the round pen to relax while we worked with Sunny, but once he was loose, he decided to see what his new body was capable of. He played and played and played. I haven’t seen him play like this since he was a baby! I mean, he and Rico will trot and canter around together in pasture sometimes, so he does play I suppose. But this was a different kind of play, like he was experimenting with his body and getting excited to feel what it was capable of. 

He bucked a lot, galloped around, stopped, reared a few times, pawed a lot, and he even played with a weird Spanish… trot? type thing? I don’t know how to describe it but if I could get him to do it inside a passage, it’d be an eight at least. 

We ended up having to pull him out of the round pen because he got kind of sweaty and gross. Luckily he was happy to hang out with Kate’s assistant in the corner while I rode Sunny and then we were on our way home! 

I can't get over how excited he was about all this,
he was so focused but also so joyful

I’m SO excited about this clinic. It was definitely life changing for us. I’m excited to have my horse back and to have found at trainer to help us through this critical time of rebuilding him. I'm so unbelievably grateful and hopeful right now. 

Cavalletti Clinic

This weekend, my chapter of CDS finally got to host their cavalletti clinic! It's literally almost been a year in the making. We were supposed to have it last spring, but then covid, so it was pushed to the summer, but then fires, so it was pushed to fall, but then smoke... so now we had it in February! 

It was PERFECT timing given that 1) TC and I had had our first lesson with Jec (but no second one because of rain, I'm excited to go back soon!) using cavalletti to improve his posture and 2) my vet had just seen TC and recommended cavalletti as a strengthening exercise. I really do want to get him doing cavalletti at least once a week, but with the rain and my schedule (I need extra time to set up the cavalletti and don't often have it), we haven't been able to do it too much. 

So many poles!

The clinician was a cavalletti specialist, who does these clinics I think for a living. TC and I were in a group with three other horses of roughly the same size but of varying skill levels. 

We got there a bit early and had to wait a little bit. I think TC really wanted to get there and WORK so he spent the time waiting getting himself all in a tither about being at a PLACE and needing to do a THING. He's been funny about his work lately, like way way overenthused to do it, so this wasn't unusual but I did have flashbacks of his youth and realized that he's not so dark anymore so I can't even pretend he's a child. 

He did eventually settle with some canter work and realizing what was going to happen during the clinic. It was an unusual clinic, he hasn't done a ton of clinics and really not a lot of group work where we have to go in a particular order, so it was great exposure for him! 

And he did!

At the beginning, she had the four of us tell her the age and breed of our horses and that was it. I found that interesting as I always ask riders for their life stories but I think she really has her process down pat and just wanted to know what to expect from the horses (younger, older, typical breed responses to cavalletti maybe?). 

She put us in a specific order (TC and I were second) and we walked through four poles that were not raised, then we walked through them when she raised alternating sides. She said what she wanted us to do was 1) stay very straight, 2) sit very deep and back, and 3) keep our hands as wide as the shoulders. 

Straightness was not an issue, but the sitting very deep/back with very wide hands made my carefully sculpted, Mary Wanless inspired position VERY uncomfortable. She kept emphasizing to me (because despite trying, my position was disobedient) that I had to keep my hands wide to engage my core (disagree) and that I had to sit back to lift his withers (disagree, maybe my brain was like "nope" and prevented me from doing it lol oh no). 

I tried hard to do the things she wanted me to do because I always go into lessons with the mindset of "trying for one ride won't kill you," (and I appreciate that in my clients too!). Unfortunately, the patterns that keep me in my position are apparently VERY strong, especially when TC went through the raised poles and his trot changed, so I felt bad that I couldn't do it for her. One of the ladies in the clinic is also a MW person and we laughed about how it felt like I had my helmet touching his butt and I was still on vertical (she wanted me slightly behind vertical and apparently my spine doesn't want me to do that).

He thought he did a good job so he
wanted a cookie

We went through the cavalletti one at a time and after every time, she would add another pole. TC and I worked up to 14 poles in a row! He was really good about the whole thing once he realized that if he quietly hung out between trots, he didn't have to work as hard. For a while, I had to canter him in between to calm him down and he kept seeing the other horses standing patiently and I think it occurred to him that he could also stand patiently. 

Most of our feedback outside of my position was to get TC's neck down and "supple" him in the poles. I didn't want to be rude but I also wanted to stay true to my horse. He certainly can reach for contact more, but neck down is not something I equate to reaching to contact at this point in my education. I also don't know how to supple a horse through some cavalletti on a straight line without shuttling the bit back and forth. So I worked to get him more supple and into the bridle in our circles before the poles and she did seem to be happier by the end, so that's good!

Other than that though, the trot felt really good, he got very passage like and I felt more lift than his normal fake passage he's been offering me (and with the poles, guaranteeing that he was tracking up, which he loses in his fake passage). He got lots of praise for that and with so many poles, I hope I got that patterned into me so I can ask him for it again sans poles. It's good for him to learn to add suspension in his trot one way or another. 

He thought her bag had cookies in it

I can't really say how much I got out of the lesson. I think maybe if I'd gotten some video, I'd have come to a firmer conclusion about it. I think the different position didn't allow me to feel as much as I normally can (especially the wide hands, my god that just made it feel awful). I did see really good changes in the other horses, so I'm thinking that the changes were there on TC, I just couldn't feel it. 

I really don't want this post to come across negatively, because despite not getting a huge amount of TC-specific help, I thought she was a fabulous clinician! I kept thinking "I wish I had Rico for this clinic!" because it would have been AMAZING to do it on him. TC is just a tricky horse in the contact and we frequently run into these types of situations where generally good instruction just doesn't work with him because of his neck getting so short so easily. 

But it was good to see how he did with so many poles, I think we'll up our game during our cavalletti days at home. And I definitely want to go see Jec again and get some more exercises from her. 

He had a good time

Although it didn't blow my mind, it was so fun! I definitely want to go again sometime and hopefully TC's connection will be a bit better with him understanding the game and with some continued work through cavalletti on our own. 

Apparently on the second day she does do cavalletti on a curved line, I didn't realize it'd be two different exercises for the two days or I would have signed up for the second day. Given that I know the spacing and I don't think the instructions would be very different though, I think I'm going to just set up our own curved line of poles this week and see how that goes for us! 

Riot at the Bombproofing Clinic

A week and a half ago, we had another bombproofing clinic! And this time, I decided to bring my dad's horse, Riot. 

Riot is a nervous nellie and he showed it in the first five minutes I got on him by tip toeing his way into the arena and standing in the middle trembling at everything around him. We brainstormed and this might be his first ever time in a covered arena. He was a trail horse before my dad got him and he's only been ridden at their property and on the trails for the years he's been with my family. 

He would not go near anything in the arena and I could feel his heart pounding as we walked quietly around in the middle avoiding everything. He's a good boy and his go-to move when he's nervous is to stand still and try to blend in with the background, but I was really hoping to get him near... something. 

SKEPTICAL

Noodles

After walking around and observing every obstacle from far away with lots of praise, I did finally get him to walk over the bridge, which I figured would be a good first obstacle because he's walked over bridges on the trail. We did that a bunch and I praised the hell out of him, trying to convince him that if he just held his breath and tried a tiny tiny bit, he'd get rewarded. 

From there, we would try getting closer to an obstacle, then return to the bridge to gain some confidence. Eventually he followed a few horses up to obstacles and would watch them do their thing while he stood and observed. This really helped him relax, and that plus interspersing the bridge, got him a little more curious and less terrified. 

Pulling the cart

He stopped caring after a while

From there, we slowly (over the course of two hours) made our way through almost every obstacle!! I was ridiculously proud of him. He came SO FAR over the course of the day. We kind of did them in a random order, making some progress on one, then going to an easy one, then going back to the original one, then introducing a new one, then going back to an easy one, and so on. 

He slowly gained confidence with each. Going from refusing to go anywhere near the car wash, to slowly following a friend through it several times, to cautiously walking through himself, to then relaxing about it and walking through no problem. 

The monkey in the barrel made him nervous, so at first he stood stock still with his eyes bugging out of his head, and eventually stood with a foot rested while it went up and down. 

Unsure about the monkey

The mattress was very scary and he was rather skeptical. I got him to put a foot on it and he scampered away from it. Someone else worked on it at one point so I let him stop and watch that person for a long time before trying again. Then he was way better at that. 

The tarp went about the same way, he was a little worried and put a foot on it, but then eventually made his way over it! 

The noodle wall REALLY worried him. He did not think he could walk into them. I ended up getting on and off, first making the walls very far apart with one noodle each, then slowly adding noodles and pushing the walls closer together. He ended up going through it with the same kind of relaxation that TC gives me through it! What a good egg. 

Am I doing a good job?? He did not
go in the water though

Walking through the car wash after a while

I was probably most proud of him with the flag, which we did at the end. The instructor carried it around on his horse and I had Riot walk behind him, then slowly we made our way next to him. The instructor carefully transitioned the flag onto my foot and then handed it to me, and soon Riot was carrying the flag without realizing it, because the horse the instructor was on was still close. Eventually the instructor peeled off and Riot realized he was carrying the flag. 

He got a little worried and wanted to freeze and then speed up, but we just kept walking and he slowly started to realize that the flag was not going to attack him. 

By the end, he was letting me do this to him: 

Relaxed and carrying the flag around

Fine with it going over his head

Good boy, Riot

I decided to end on that. I would have loved to get him to do a little more and go through everything again, but going from standing in the middle of the arena LITERALLY trembling with his heart pounding to letting me whirl a flag over him was progress enough. 

I almost wish I were bringing him this weekend, but I do want TC to go to another one for fun. My mom was considering bringing Sunny to the one this weekend but my dad needs to get a COVID test for a routine doctor's appointment and that requires a five day quarantine for them or something like that. 

Hopefully there will be more bombproofing clinics this spring/summer so that my mom can do one on her own and I can bring Riot to another one! I had the best time with him. 

Sunny at the Bombproofing Clinic

I missed talking about Sunny at the bombproofing clinic in November, and then last weekend we took Riot to another one! So I figured I'd talk about Sunny in this post, then talk about Riot tomorrow and then the following week, we'll talk about TC, who is going to one next weekend!

Good pony!

So, I love TC to death but I do have to admit that he is now so bombproof and so chill that I find him a bit boring. Don't get me wrong, I adore him and the fact that I now have a horse I can walk around bareback in a hackamore on in the dark even when he's had two weeks off makes me very very happy. 

But when the bombproofing clinic people said they'd be doing three mini clinics this winter, I knew that I didn't want to bring TC to all of them. I wanted a bit more of a challenge. So I asked my mom if I could bring her pony, Sunny. 

Sunny is a good boy, but he makes my mom a bit nervous sometimes. It's not that he's super spooky or anything, he just *does* spook, unlike TC at this point who just looks at stuff curiously unless he's been recently poked with needles. I figured I could kill two birds with one stone and ride something that actually spooks while also helping my mom out. She came out with me to see how he was and I made her bring her riding stuff just in case!

Noodles are sketchy

A bit worried about the monkey

Sunny unloaded just fine and was great walking over to the arena, but once inside he was a little bit overwhelmed. The instructor knew that I knew what I was doing with the bombproofing stuff (since I've come to most of their clinics in the last few years), so she said that if I just wanted to start, that would be fine and to let her know if I had any issues that she could help with. 

I started with walking Sunny over the bridge, since he's done a lot of trail riding and would probably find that one easy. He did and we then walked over to the monkey in the barrel, which he absolutely hated. It was in this moment that I realized how unbelievably good TC really is at this point. He doesn't even flinch when the monkey pops up even if it bonks him in the head. Sunny stood pretty far back from it and was ready to leave. 

We worked on it a little bit but my main goal was to find out what he was okay with after a couple of times and then let my mom get on him and do those things. So we moved on to the car wash. I made the mistake of pointing him at it against the wind, so it blew up in his face and he went to spin. We re-approached from the other direction and slowly made our way under it. He zipped through twice and then decided it was pretty boring. We then went back the scary direction and he was fine! Good pony. 

Not a fan of mattresses

Testing it out

After that, he wouldn't walk through the water, so we skipped that and worked on the mattress. He was weird about it at first but then relaxed and walked over that. The tarp went about the same as the car wash, with him refusing to go over it on the side that was a bit windy but being fine to go over it from the other side. 

The noodle wall confused the hell out of him. He didn't think he could walk through it because the noodles were in the way. So we moved the wall out to make it wider and he skirted through it a couple of times before I grabbed a noodle and bopped it all over him, then he seemed a bit more comfortable. We went through it a bunch and eventually he was okay about going through it. 

The last thing we did was pull a little kid's car thing around. He was really quite good about that, which is fabulous because he's supposed to be a good grandchildren's horse for my parents and he will need to tolerate that kind of stuff!

Learning to be a good grandchild horse

Gotta get used to bears too

My mom got on him after that and we went through all the exercises he was good about with me. She walked him over the bridge, through the box of garbage, under the car wash, across the mattress and the tarp, and through the noodle wall. Throughout the ride, my mom went from being very nervous and holding onto her grab strap and the reins for stability/control to riding around on a loose rein with her phone out taking video of Sunny doing all the obstacles. 

From there, we went on a walk around the whole property and Sunny was a good boy walking around. He even did a bunch of the trail course obstacles and walked around the field quietly. We would have loved to do more with him, but he's pretty out of shape and two hours in, he was exhausted. So my mom took him home after that. 

Tarp walker

It was SUCH a fun day. I loved having more of a challenge to work with through the obstacles so that I don't lose my touch with spooky horses. I think it'll be good to take Sunny and eventually Riot to these to work on my own bombproofing-ness so that I'm better prepared for my future horse. 

I also really loved seeing my mom have so much fun and gain confidence. She hasn't been riding much this year due to the virus and how insane everything has been. Without riding, she loses confidence and then it becomes really hard to start up again. So this was the perfect way to show her how good Sunny is and how she can trust him at home where there aren't any crazy things going on. 

We talked about getting her over to my barn with him to walk around and introduce Sunny to TC and then the two of us can start going on trail rides again. My mom FINALLY trusts TC and my assertation that TC is literally the most bombproof horse I've ever had (she thinks Rico "exudes calmness" and always trusted him but she knew TC when he was an idiot). So hopefully we can trail ride in the spring together! And if Sunny is bad, she can always hop on TC. I don't think she ever thought she'd ride him! 

Bombproofing Clinic

On Sunday, we went to another bombproofing clinic! It was the same people as the last two, which we did back in 2017. Here's the post for the first one and the second one. They're interesting reads just because of how long ago they were! I forgot how much TC wanted to fight with me that year, what a dork. 

This year, obviously, TC is a completely different horse. He and I had three years to work on our relationship, his reactiveness, my nerves, and so on. He has been my rock for about a year and a half now, being a solid partner in everything I've thrown at him. And I've thrown a lot at him. Trail riding during the pandemic has been wild, we've showed at many new facilities, and we've done some working equitation clinics too! Everything I give to TC now is met with curiosity and a relaxed attitude. 

Probably my favorite picture from the
clinic!

So I could not wait to see how he was at this clinic. And obviously he was absolutely brilliant!

There were fifteen of us on horses (including some people I actually knew! We were not the only english pair there) and three instructors also on horses, so seventeen additional horses in the arena with TC. They broke us out into groups of five so we could work with an instructor on each individual obstacle. 

The first one for our group was the mattress. TC walked confidently over it on a loose rein and then had to stand and wait while the other horses all worked out what the fuck that was. He was pretty patient about waiting, but he kept looking over at the other groups doing other obstacles and definitely seemed envious. 

From there, the same thing happened with the box of trash (devoid of trash at the beginning), TC walked confidently through it on a loose rein and then had to wait while other horses were nervous about it. We went back over the mattress a couple of times and then stood around waiting until the instructor (who remembered him from three years ago) told me to just go play with the obstacles on our own because TC was clearly not going to need any help with them. And that's what we did! 

He was so incredibly smug all day, he
kept looking back at me with this
expression on his face lol

Literally every obstacle I pointed him at, he did confidently and on a loose rein, which he neck reined on a fair amount despite me never actually teaching him. 

He walked quietly over a mattress, a tarp, several bridges, and through garbage. He walked quietly through the car wash and the noodle walls. He pushed a cart, he also pulled the cart as well as a 4x4 with a flag on the end. After lunch he happily went back into the arena and walked around with a giant flag, allowing me to put it all over his body, even covering his eyes and he just stood there nosing it. He then let me carry around a huge stuffed bear on his back, both in front of and behind the saddle. He also did the parachute, this time while I was on him, and walked under it three times. 

If you want to see video, there's some on my instagram @alchemy.dressage on the highlights under Sensory Clinic. I'm not compiling anything for this post, sorry!

Pls let me smash (I did and he broke
a bag open, woops)

All that is really cool and fun, but the best part was realizing how great of a horse he is going to be for his future baby brother. 

I've been figuring out how I can have two horses for a while and I think I'm within a year (fingers crossed) of being able to make a move on the purchase of a two year old. My goal will be to spend the horse's two year old year ponying him on trails and doing ground work, plus maybe the bombproofing clinic, before I start the horse at three. I love what I've been able to turn TC into (see above) and I want to start a little earlier this time. 

TC is paramount in my plan to turn the baby into a smaller version of him (with better conformation!) over the years. He is going to be the one who babysits the baby horse on the trail, at new places, and so on. 

Curling so he can dart into the middle
of the group and play with stuff

So while it was great to see how much TC has grown in his own curiosity with objects, it was WAY more fun to see that he was going to make a good big brother one day. 

Horses spooked around him and even into him and he was quiet about it. He sweetly led horses through scary obstacles, letting them bolt past him. He let horses get very close to him when we were carrying scary things so that the other horses could see the object without carrying it themselves. He stood in the way of a few scary things so that we blocked them from other horses' views. 

He seemed to genuinely want to help horses too, which was adorable. He made friends with one horse, then led the horse through the car wash and kept stopping to wait for the horse. Then when the horse cantered past him, he stopped and waited for the horse again. 

So cute

Overall, he far exceeded my expectations for the day! Everyone was taken by him, with people in the stands asking if he was actually afraid of anything (I said no and then he hauled ass away from a water bottle on the rail, lol thanks TC) and a few people coming up to me to ask me how I made him like this. I just said a lot of time, doing clinics like these, and clicker training! 

The instructor remembered him from three years ago. She said she was so excited to see us on the list and that I had done a fabulous job with him the last few years. She reiterated her offer, if TC ever needs a home, she will always be able to place him as a police horse. She says he's exactly the type of horse they look for. 

It feels great to be at this point with him. I'm so proud of him and of how hard we've both worked to get here. He was not an easy young horse, but he was worth it. Days like Sunday really prove that. I can't wait for our next adventure!

Bombproofing Clinic Take Two

On Sunday, TC and I headed over to a barn nearby for another bombproofing clinic! This was our second one together. As a reminder, here is the write up from the one in March.

I was SUPER stoked for this clinic. In March I was so apprehensive about it because TC had been a really reactive, spooky horse and was regularly scaring me undersaddle. Now, after a whole season of traveling to new places, experiencing new things, and generally being a good pony, I was really looking forward to this clinic. It was just going to be FUN!

So eager

I unloaded TC and sure enough, he was MUCH better about being tacked up than last time. He didn't make as big of an entrance and I was actually able to get his bridle on without being dragged around the property. All of that time going to new places and dealing with his antics has really paid off.

I still decided to do a fair amount on the ground. First, I wanted to play it safe. Second, my saddle actually needed to be repaired (getting it back today) so riding in it all day was a good way to increase that repair bill. Third, I definitely still have more confidence on the ground. So I put a rope halter (not his usual one, I have one without a clip) over his bridle and led him over to get signed in.

After signing in, we headed into the arena to join the crowd of horses (about nine or ten).

Once again, we were the only ones in english tack. Everyone else was riding nice quiet quarter horse types. I was the only weirdo bringing my dorky dressage horse over. I like it though, it's a nice change of pace from the dressage shows and clinics where I have been yelled at for breathing too loudly or trotting near someone (srs, some people have problems with friesians and freisian xs because they can be "thundering" when actually my horse is pretty light on his feet).

Car wash

The structure of the clinic was very much the same as last time. We had introductions in a circle, where I used the same line about being here for experience because he's young as last time, while also wrestling him to stand still like last time too. TC continued to mirror his prior behavior of enthusiastically dragging me to obstacles to investigate them while we walked around them. The clinicians showed us each obstacle and told us how to introduce the obstacles to our horses. Most of the horses, or at least the riders, had been before so it went faster than last time.

Before setting us loose, the clinicians reminded us that kindness would get us further than punishment. I've had to learn the hard way a couple times that adding more tension to a situation doesn't make a horse relax. It sounds like a no duh situation, but it can be easy to put pressure on them.

The whole time we were talking and wandering around, TC was strutting around a bit. He was way way confident. He knew where we were and what his job was and he wanted to do his job as fast as possible for that sweet sweet praise. Take it down a notch, bro.

Tarp

We started with the water and he marched through it just fine. Then we went over to the tarp and marched over that too. Then we hit the car wash and the bridge, which he was pretty good about too. Everything he did with confidence, even if he was a bit rushed. It wasn't rushing to get away from the object as much as being like "I KNOW WHAT TO DO LET ME DO IT."

After that, I hopped on. Immediately I was like oh fuck. He felt really rude. I was not necessary. Keeping it in mind that he might lose his shit on me, I figured I'd just get through as much as I could with him in his mood and then do more ground work. Days like this don't happen very often, but there are some days where I get on him and he's just like FUCK OFF and seems like all he wants to do is pick a fight. It was probably caused by me shutting him down a bunch on the ground before getting on him. Does not do well being told he can't go forward.

But here we were and we were going to figure it out.

When your mom dresses you up

We started by just walking around the arena, then played over the bridge and the tarp, the easiest stuff for him. I then saw an available yoga ball. Cool! On days where he's feeling like he wants to fight, I always give him lots of praise. Isn't it fun to be ridden, yes we like being ridden, we get pets and good boys. So we got lots of praise for kicking the yoga ball and I could feel him settle a bit. It is fun to be ridden. Yoga balls are very fun. Let's kick it again. OH YES LET'S GO KICK THE SHIT OUT OF THAT THING. He kicked it away from himself at one point and then positively LEAPS into the air and strikes out, then leaps after it.

So we definitely left the yoga ball after that, though he did seem like he was in a better mood. So, uh, yay?

Our next obstacle was the cart. Last time he really didn't figure out pushing the cart but this time he totally did! They have a side (not the side in the picture) where you can let them push their chest on it and it will roll. TC was all about doing this. We approached it slowly at first, with him getting told he was good when he put his chest near it. He can be a bully with his chest in general so getting him to push with it wasn't hard. He figured that out and had a great time with it.

Cart

Poor animal

We went over to the monkey barrel after that and once again TC refused to pay attention to the monkey popping out in front of him because he was too busy spooking at some jump standards on the side of the arena. Cool.

We walked over to the flags and I was about to grab one when TC suddenly spun and ran off with me. What the fuck. This horse is not that kind of spooky, not at this clinic. As we whirled, I saw that another horse had kicked his yoga ball and that he wasn't spooking, he was excited to join in. Lay off the yoga ball!

I asked the clinician if I could trot around the arena to calm him down and I was allowed to. As we were trotting I could hear people seeming impressed with his gaits. Yeah... they're really nice to look at. And they're nice to ride when he's not snaking his neck and striking out like he was. He was just WAY too happy to be there.

Sure enough, we had a bolt and then some leaping due to a whole lot of nothing. Just excitement. Yay clinics. Yay fun obstacles. Must celebrate. Fuck my rider, who cares that she hates my celebrations? Life is too short to make your rider happy anyway.

We had one final straw that made me get off of him for good, and that was him once again reacting to another horse doing something he wanted to do and he reared. I kicked him forward and got him to do a few good things before getting off. Fuck not having fun. I'm not there to ride through his bullshit.

Monkey

Flinging things at him

After getting off, I decided to go throw things at him. I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel kind of nice to chuck things at him after he had been so obnoxious. I mostly threw the little discs at him. One hit his face accidentally. He was a champ and just stood there and took it. I threw them under his legs and over his back and onto his butt and everywhere I could think of.

At the same station, they had the flags too, so I waved those all over him and we even went on a nice walk around the arena with one waving near his face.

There were also noise makers (a water jug filled with rocks and a bag full of cans) that I shook by him. That was the only thing that bothered him, he thought that me shaking a bag full of cans near his butt wasn't very fun.

That was all the time we had for the morning, so we headed out of the arena for lunch!

Flags

I didn't bring much for lunch because I had planned on using the whole break to tie TC up at the trailer and ignore him, then leave early. As I expected, the moment TC realized he was left at the trailer (I hid in the tack room and then in the truck and creeped on Fresno results), he began rearing and rearing. He really hates being left anywhere but his home cross ties or the wash rack.

I found out later that there is a patience pole near the arena that they told me I could haul over to use without paying a ring fee! So I'll be seeing about doing that sometimes. He's really got to be better about being left...

After 45 minutes of pretty much non stop rearing and pawing, I took him into the arena with the intention of doing maybe 10-15 minutes of work and then leaving. I didn't even grab my helmet.

But once back in the arena, TC was a dream! I could see that he finally got all his energy out and he was finally ready to work. Remind me next time we have a bad start to a ride to just tie him up for 45 minutes and let him rear himself into calmness. Or maybe he should be able to cope with his emotions better. Whatever.

Dear TC, you are an asshole, pls stop

Everything had been made much harder now that we were all pros at the obstacles. I spent a few minutes throwing the bag of cans onto TC's saddle and letting it fall off, then went to play with the harder obstacles.

The bridge had been made into a teeter totter, which TC hates. He always steps off of it when it starts to teeter. I had grabbed my clicker and a few cookies, so with that I was able to get him to go on it. Some people were able to get their horses to stand on it and shift their weight to make it teeter back and forth, which was SUPER cool but mine wasn't about that. Maybe next time.

All of the strips of fabric on the car wash had been let down. The first time TC walks through the car wash in general, he hesitates, even if just one strip is down. Since we had already had that experience earlier, TC was fine with it. We walked through it in both directions, then I backed him through it. At first he wasn't sure about backing through it, but then settled into it.

Destroying the car wash

Noodles

Last time, the noodle chute was something TC didn't like. This time, I rode through it once and he was a little squirrelly, but then settled just fine. Once as all the noodles were in it (after lunch) and the pieces of plywood were pushed closer together, we went through it again. TC was super good about it. Actually seemed to think that the noodles felt good to itch against rather than feeling wiggly about them. Again, we went forward and back through them.

I was running out of things to do, so I figured that we'd just walk over the mattress and then head home. Last time TC was super weird about the mattress, but this time he was totally fine. He thought about pawing it, which the clinicians said to avoid because the horses could get shoes stuck in it or pull it toward themselves. So I told him to stop and he just resorted to smelling it.

Mattress

I was just thinking that it was time for me to leave when the clinician came up and had us all get out of the way because they were going to inflate this tube man.

TC has never seen anything like a WACKY WAVING INFLATABLE ARM FLAILING TUBE MAN before. I wasn't sure how he'd respond but I was SUPER curious.

I've never seen this horse do such a hilarious thing. In all his confidence, once as the tube man was fully inflated (nearly touched the roof of the covered arena), TC surged towards it. He picked up a trot, lowered his head and then flung it up in the air, snaking his neck and striking out.

I had no idea what he was doing. What the fuck is your plan, man? Apparently he thought maybe he'd intimidate it? Thought it was a toy until realizing it was actually gigantic?

He ultimately skidded to a halt pretty far out and stared at it. He kept trying to get his head to go up higher so he could see it better, but unfortunately he was not tall enough.

After we played with the tube man, it was time for the last thing of the day, so I figured I'd stay. We got a group of horses to walk in a circle with a parachute between them. I was just leading TC, though next time I will try riding him! It was super fun, and TC was not afraid at all. He kept trying to bite the parachute, which I had to wrestle him back from a few times.

In the end, we held the parachute up really high and allowed horses and riders to ride under it. TC watched everyone go under it and then it was his turn! He wasn't really interested in going under it, he wanted to put it in his mouth instead. I was able to convince him though, and he happily marched under.

go under, TC!

Overall it was a SUPER great clinic. I was mildly disappointed at first because of his weird behavior, but it's just part of him being a young horse and getting experience. And I honestly can't fault him that he has a rider who doesn't like his celebrations. I mean, he needs to get that under control and be a bit more emotionally mature, but that isn't going to happen by avoiding situations like this. So we just press forward.

After telling myself to get over the mild disappointment, I was really happy with the day in the end. TC was definitely more confident and less nervous about everything at the clinic than last time. I was more confident with him, even if we haven't reached Rico status. We did more and were more successful than last time. And we pointed out a few weaknesses (like standing at the trailer tied) that we need to work on.

Sounds like a good day to me!