Auditing Christine Traurig

Christine Traurig came to give lessons at a barn nearby a couple weeks ago and so Peony and I jumped at the chance to audit her. After finding out that the Laura Graves clinic cost $100/day to audit, we were happy to pay the $28 for two days.

I'm just going to put all this in bullet form since there was just SO MUCH information. She's very much the German school of thought, which is not always something that works with TC, but she had some really good points and really good exercises. I would totally audit again, but I think there are other clinicians better suited for the type of horse I have. 

I took a bunch of ranch pictures this last weekend

General Thoughts

- The horse must stay linearly in a unit, supple of course, but in a unit 

- Any canter departure should be able to be done in shoulder-fore, if not, do the transition in shoulder-in

- When one component (aid) becomes dominant, the horse must remain submissive in others (so like when you go to bend the horse, they should not stiffen the neck against you or put their haunches in or what not)

- Don't ride a stiff horse fast, ride a moving horse into the contact

- Do not kick a young horse, do not punish them when they are not educated (this was incredibly well put IMO, she wasn't even kicking him, but Christine was SUPER adamant that you not punish the horses)

- Feel the suspension in the half halt

- An engaged hind leg is committed to carrying and pushing, and you have to have total control over the ratio. (I fucking LOVE this, I LOVE IT. I think this is a huge thing for TC and I moving forward)

Fall leaves

On the Connection

- When the horse feels the contact, it needs to not feel like he needs to compress (this was affecting the canter mechanic and making the horse lateral, hey maybe that's why TC's canter used to be so lateral)

- If you don't have an elastic back, don't even try to compress them

- The rider's hands should be partners, not disharmonious. Don't bring one or the other back or out to straighten the horse. 

- An uptake in contact should not back the horse off, tighten the horse, or make him less elastic in the back.

- The horse should draw to the bit which is a feeling through the back and the topline (not just perpetual stretch circle) 

- "As a clinician, I feel like this horse has to do a lot of this [trotting in circles stretching to the bit], but I also feel like this lesson is so monotonous, but this is necessary" <---- story of my life as a clinician! Ask my students how many times they've had an entire lesson on a circle perfecting transitions or throughness. Sorry guys, one day you WILL leg yield. 

- In canter, the elbows must not be fixed or the horse will not move through the topline

- Relaxation is not only calmness, it's suppleness and elasticity. The horse is physically and mentally at ease. 

Quail!

Flying Changes and Tempis

- Before doing a change, think counter-shoulder-fore and establish throughness within this movement first

- In the flying changes, the rib cage has to feel supple and the hind legs narrow in a shoulder-fore 

- With one horse who liked to unload her hind legs in the one tempis, Christine had the rider ride tempo (not tempi) changes (aka forward and back) on the long side and said "the horse should not unbend the hing legs in the push off" into the longer step. 

- The new inside leg in the counter shoulder-fore in the changes help keeps the horse from jumping sideways in the change 

- Do changes straight at the mirror to understand how effective your new inside leg is at keeping the horse straight 

- When you need to solve a problem in the flying changes, do them on quarter line

- The horse must be straight enough to allow your leg to swing in the changes. If the horse doesn't stay straight on their own, you can't move your leg. 

- Christine said she had a friesian who was a "spaghetti salad" in the two tempis because he anticipated so badly, she never attempted the ones on him. 

Bridge to the pump house and the arena

On Lateral Work

- In the corners, think cadence coming into the lateral work, it is hard to develop it within the movement so start with what you want 

- Inside leg at the girth in the shoulder-in so you don't ride the inside hind leg too sideways

- In the half pass, you should have the same feeling in the outside rein as you get in the shoulder-in 

- In the half pass, don't let the haunches get anywhere near to leading or the horse will go downhill, you must find the shoulder-in within the half pass

- Christine was big on shoulder-fore. She said the shoulder-fore should not have any neck bend but should have suppleness in the rib cage. She had everyone ride it constantly. 

- Ride shoulder-fore until you own the canter (see? lol)

- You should be able to position the horse left without the shoulders going right

- As you enter the half pass, ride shoulder-fore so that you don't let the horse get wide behind

- The steepness in the half pass comes from the mobility of the front end, not how fast you can get the horse over (which just pushes the horse wide behind in the half pass and unloads the hind legs)

- When schooling travers in canter, do not lose control over the inside hind leg

This thing is so cute

Passage, Piaffe, and Pirouettes

- In the passage, more engagement and "more short coupled" feeling to make better transitions into piaffe. You should always be able to shorten the passage, it's not a static movement. Developing a "working" passage, which will then be the transition steps into piaffe. 

- The passage should not get slow, ride quick transitions back and forth to trot to keep the horse active and quick in the passage. 

- The canter pirouette should turn around the inside hind leg rather than getting wide behind (this is a common result of training pirouettes incorrectly - from the haunches-in), the shoulder-in should be the starting alignment for the pirouettes.

- Do not over-flex the horse or push the haunches around. 

Random stuff around the ranch

There was a moment with one young horse that kind of hit me pretty hard in a hilarious way. The rider said that she had wanted to ride with Christine before but that the horse was an idiot. Christine said "did you just call him an idiot?" 

She watched him go and he was probably right around where TC was last year. She asks how old he is, the rider says five, she asks how long he's been undersaddle and she said two years. Then Christine said "it's time for a dose of reality" and they got down to work. She at one point asked "is he coming five or coming six?" and the rider said coming six and she said "oh Jesus" into the mic. 

First, there is no timeline for horses. Like, TC is coming eight and getting ready to hopefully do Second and end the year at Third next year. He will be going Prix St George (hopefully!) when most horses are doing their first Grand Prix tests. 

Second, it did make me realize that TC still had some obnoxious behavior to squash out. And I don't just mean his enthusiasm undersaddle when it gets windy. I mean standing quietly at the trailer, standing quietly on the trailer, standing quietly in the cross ties, not climbing in my pocket when I'm holding him and talking to someone... most of it is just patience. I realized that I should probably address these minor things now before I try to sell a feral horse and have the new trainer say "oh Jesus" when they realize I'm selling an FEI dressage horse who rears himself quiet at the trailer. 

So since TC is off because of the smoke, we are doing a lot of things, and some of it is a dose of reality for TC. I'm really excited to see how he develops on this over the winter! 

Even More Biomechanics

On Friday and Saturday, Nicole brought one of the trainers I met at the Mary clinic in to her barn! I really wanted to ride with her, but I also have a horse who is very hit or miss right now and have no way of getting over there anyway. Hopefully TC will settle, and I'll have a good idea of what my trailer budget is by the end of April, really hoping that I can resolve that problem as early as May!

But I obviously wasn't going to miss out on an educational opportunity if I didn't have to, so on Friday (which I had off from work, which was so awesome), I zipped over to Nicole's barn to watch the clinic.

This clinic feels like a lifetime ago!

Alexis is a Grand Prix dressage trainer and was a demo rider at the Mary clinic on her sometimes tricky but very talented stallion. Seeing her ride this horse and hearing stories about him made me very sure that I wanted to work with her. And then finding out that she regularly works with Friesian x Warmblood crosses really solidified it for me. She also has a fabulous dog, which is always a major plus in my book.

The focus of the clinic was biomechanics, which was great. Kate and I have had many a conversation about biomechanics since the Mary clinic and have helped each other out a bit with it too. I've audited another potential trainer who was at the clinic as well. But it was great to see Alexis' take on the whole thing, and I was really impressed.

Here were some of the things I took away:

Water Pooling Up
I want to write a whole post on the landau reflex and how learning about it has completely changed the way I deal with TC's bolting issue, but Alexis had a great visualization for it. Imagine that the musculature of the horse's topline (and/or the backline of the horse) is a hose and that water flows through it from the hindquarters, over the back and under the saddle, up over the neck, and then into the bridle. When the horse retracts their head and neck backward, the water flows backward and pools. Immediately I imagined the pool of water being right on the horse's wither, since that's where TC wants to drop when he gets his neck backward like that, but you could also imagine it pooling under the saddle where a lot of horses drop their backs.

Pulling on the face is just encouraging this water to continue to pool. Instead of going to the reins at all (and she was pretty adamant that you don't do any pulling/wiggling/wobbling/shaking the bit/*~*softening*~* and I was nodding vigorously by that point I think), you need to find a way to get the water flowing out to the bridle again. This comes from getting the back up. Some horses, like the one in the clinic, really convince you it's all about the jaw/neck/head. They shake it at you, throw it back in your face... but it's not at all about the neck or the jaw or the head placement.

Um excuse me I am not the type to put my ears in
your nostrils, no sir

Suction Cups
One cool thing that came out of both her lecture and a couple lessons was the idea of a suction cup. I've mostly read and discussed it in terms of the seat, so we'll do that first. The rider can do three things with the way their seat interacts with the horse's back. They can squash the horse's back down away from them, they can stay neutral, or they can suck the horse's back up. All in the way the rider is sitting. Alexis emphasized that sometimes for riders, it's hard enough to get into neutral, where the rider is simply staying out of the horse's way and allowing the horse to move under them. But when you start to become really good, you can start to change the way horses use themselves simply by how you sit on them, that you start leading the horse with your superior structure/way of riding.

I've used this a fair amount in teaching, instructing people to sit the trot they want the horse to have or to think about pulling the saddle back off the horse's withers/shoulders in the canter (another way of describing the slingshot). But I've mostly used it with regard to the seat.

Alexis also said that it can be used with the leg as well. If you have a horse who falls away from one leg and into the other, it can be tempting to make space under the leg the horse falls away from, then use the other leg to hound the horse into the void. Horses do not want to go into the void. So the idea is to get the loose leg on and then drive the horse into that contact. Suction cups do not suck unless you put pressure on first. You can't just hold a suction cup away from something and expect it to draw that object toward it (that's a magnet).

Magnetic pull toward himself (man I miss mirrors)

Using the Ground
A lot of what came out of the clinic I'd heard and/or taught before (to be perfectly honest, not a lot is brand brand new to me in the second toolkit), but the way Alexis put things into words made another of layer of realization appear. For example, a certain airy fairy horse needed more impulsion. Impulsion is the horse pushing off the ground and thrusting themselves forward.  I know these things. The way Alexis put it was that the horse didn't want to use the ground. If he had his way, he'd just float along. And it really struck a cord with me.

TC has had some issues with impulsion, less involving the ground and more involving the suppleness of his back (a big part of impulsion that I always forgot about until it was circled in like... all my tests last year). But thinking about his hind legs using the ground in a productive way, vs just floating along (which TC does do at times). Alexis emphasized that this is mirrored in the rider, if posting is just going up and down, you're not going to influence the horse to push more off the ground. She focused on getting more of a hydraulic post and it really translated to the horse.

This amount of impulsion took years to develop. I think I'm still
too scared to know how much impulsion he could have lol

As much as I want to take all my money and throw it into lessons immediately, my plan is to let TC settle into his barn situation for the month of April. While that happens, I will teach as much as I can (I blasted emails to the pony clubs nearby this last weekend and heard back!) to help accelerate my trailer purchase. In the mean time, I asked Alexis if she had a horse I could take a lesson on and she said yes! A few! So I think I'll schedule something with her on one of her horses.

There are a ton of benefits to this situation. First, I get used to driving out to her place and can see what it would be like to haul there (since you know, new rig + new roads = eek). I can also work solely on myself without having to worry about TC's sometimes tricky behavior and our history together. Alexis can get to know me as a rider on a horse she is familiar with so she can really dig into my issues before seeing how they affect TC (maybe I'll even get her on TC!). And TC gets the benefit of me getting better and having more things to work on without having to go off the property just yet. I can feel like we're making progress toward our goals this year even before having a trailer. Plus, I might bombard her with videos of TC to get some input on what she thinks of him.

After that my ideal situation would be to ride with her twice a month. Maybe once a month driving out to her place (and possibly staying overnight if I can swing it since it's 1.5 hours away) and then once a month coercing her into coming out here. I'm also going to keep auditing in this area of course, and see who else comes out here. I gotta get my teaching business up and going so I can do all these fun educational opportunities myself!

Auditing Jeremy Again

On Friday I took a half day at work and drove to Winters where I drank a delicious peppermint mocha and struggled to work without internet (made a powerpoint, answered emails from my phone, and did some fun stats!). Then around 3:15, I drove out to Peony's barn and from then on, it was just... shenanigans.

I had decided to put way too much into my weekend, and the first half is auditing the Jeremy Steinberg clinic on Saturday, which I'm going to talk about today.

First let me say that if anyone is in the area, stay at Peony's house. You get the world's most comfortable guest bed, the world's most stealable dog, and there's this breakfast buffet nearby that is amazing. Also pony talk. For hours. And pony videos. For hours.

Like soloshot videos (these are pictures though) of boring long
lining and riding sessions

We had an awesome night eating ramen and talking about plans I can't share on the blog yet, as well as looking at soloshot videos (and using their fast internet to upload them and make gifs for this blog, coming on Wednesday) and Andy figuring out a way for me to have a little microphone while I'm riding so I can tell the soloshot what TC feels like so I can improve my feel.

We then got to actually sleep in on Saturday (which I did not) before eating a delicious breakfast and going out to watch rides. After watching the morning rides, we went to go clicker train Spot, then came back for more rides!

Here are my notes from the clinic:

- In a freestyle, ride a bit off the rail. This way if you get ahead of your music, which is what typically happens in a show (practicing it at home when you're relaxed vs riding maybe more forward/quicker in a stressful environment), you can "make the arena bigger" by riding out to the rail. If you get behind the music, you can just cut off the short sides.

- In some ways, Grand Prix horses are easier to ride because you don't have to hold a horse together, but in other ways, they're much harder because you have 300 more movements to deal with. I a million times feel this with my horses. Rico is easier to ride because you can just get on and go, he's automatically into the bridle and pushing in the way that I want TC to be now. But TC is easier because he's still only schooling Second/Third on a good day and those movements don't come up very fast.

- Jeremy emphasized logging in hours. Log in hours and hours in the contact. Log in hours and hours and HOURS in the sitting trot. The horses need to lock into work. If I have one complaint about my students in the past, it's that they think that just because the horse CAN go into the bridle correctly means that it's a non issue. Logging in hours and days and weeks and months where the only thing you do is ride boring figures and put the horse into contact is the best thing to do. Do it for twice as long as it should take. But that's not fun and I taught teenagers so, you know.

I don't have any pictures of the clinic so here are more fun
long lining pictures

- If I want to bring the front end up and change the shape of the body, I need to be able to push the hind legs under. That has to come first.

- If you're going to longe a horse, make sure that you get good quality work out of them. Make the work hard so they learn to work hard.

- Make sure that every day you're logging time in the gaits you want the horse to go in. You have to build the expectation (and the strength) that this is how the horse goes.

- Think about exaggerating the movement in the lower back and pelvis (of the horse) in transitions.

- Ride your preparation within the canter, meaning to always ride the canter being prepared to do any movements. If you have to do a lot of prep for a movement, the horse will anticipate it and might drop their back (this horse did).

- When a horse gets too low in the bridle, they feel round when they aren't. Roundness has to include flexion at the poll. When you bring the neck up, the poll must flex and if it doesn't, the horse may appear on the vertical when the poll is low but in front of the vertical when the poll is up. This causes many horses to feel rigid on the contact up there and so people put the horses back down.

- Also when they're too low in the bridle, the contact isn't isolated so contact problems can be masked.

I love how attentive he is now

- When the horse gets quick, they don't have to swing the hind leg under the body and the lumbar spine doesn't have to flex. Slow the horse down and push the hind leg under.

- Trotting generates twist of the spine because one hind leg swings under at a time. Cantering generates flexion of the spine due to both hind legs swinging under at the same time. This means that a good trot covers a lot of stride and a good canter gains height.

- Haunches in on a large circle with lots of bend and a bit like medium (this was used on a VERY fancy horse so I think us mere mortals have to be careful that it's a true medium in an uphill balance vs just running) to develop sit and lumbar engagement.

- In a medium trot, the step needs to stay slow so that the stride can cycle through the body and the horse can use their back.

Flexing the lumbar spine

Overall it was super fun! There were a lot of different types of horses and riders, which makes for great auditing. Lots of horses were not TC's type, so that made it a little trickier to pick out things that TC would benefit from, but I had a couple takeaways both from what Jeremy said and from watching a couple riders.

- What I'm doing to get him to flex his pelvis and his lumbar area on the long lines is EXACTLY what Jeremy was going on and on about all day. So yay.

- I need to take more time to develop the medium trot so that he doesn't get quick. It's his tendency and I've sort of just accepted it, and that's not okay. The medium is going to directly relate to the passage.

- The last rider we watched was a really amazing rider. I mean, really amazing horse too, but the way this rider rode made a huge difference. Aids were very quiet, there was no force or holding or fudging of movements, when the horse went to try to make a big move the rider was right there, no resistance against the movement even if it was unexpected. You could tell that the horse was very confident in his rider. It was really inspiring to see. I can't really describe what it's going to do for TC, but I felt like watching Jeremy and the rider work together shifted something in how I'm thinking about TC's training and my riding.

Screw Up with Confidence

One of the ways that I'm going to try to maintain my dressage education and scratch my dressage itch while I'm taking a break is to audit clinics.

One of the ways that I like to come dangerously close to committing a crime is to drive north a couple of hours to visit Peony and Nicole and threaten endlessly to put their dogs in my car and take off.

These two things coincided this weekend with a visit to them and to watch Peony ride with Jeremy on her awesome lease horse, Muze!


Jeremy is an amazing clinician to audit, which isn't something I say lightly since I sometimes find auditing really frustrating. I think there's a difference between people who are good clinicians and people who are good instructors- some trainers you need to ride with a number of times before you really get into a groove with them, and others tend to be better at giving you a boost once and then coming back months later. How many times I've ridden with a great clinician, then tried to employ them as a trainer and been disappointed. And how many times I've seen someone ride with someone I know to be a great trainer and thought that their lesson was kind of terrible.

There are also instructors/clinicians that are super helpful to ride with but not that fun to audit, and vice versa. I've ridden with Jeremy once way back in 2009 and know that at least with where TC is now, I got way more out of auditing than I would have out of riding just because of the nature of the lesson. I want to go back to ride with Jeremy when TC of the future is at a higher level and Megan of the future has more money.

Wish I'd had the money to do more fun stuff with this guy when
he was going like this

That being said, the things he said completely transformed the way I thought about my relationship with TC and I feel like this could possibly be a turning point with us (except the weather decided to dump a big load of CRAZY on us and we're still recovering from that).

Here are some of the things I wrote down:

On Training Changes

Lead changes are tough to train because with a half pass or half steps, you can slow down the gaits/movement to help the horse understand the movement better. With a change, you can't do that because you take away the moment of suspension that is so necessary for the change to happen. Thus by slowing the canter down to help the horse out, you're actually making it harder for them to change.

This is a huge reason why it's also hard to teach people to do changes too! You can learn so many movements in the walk first (like all the lateral work and pirouettes) before you have to manage the quality of the gait. Sure the half pass is better/easier in a big forward through trot or canter, but it's POSSIBLE to do in a stilted walk as you learn where to put the legs.

Lead changes, on the other hand, aren't possible to do/train unless the quality of the canter is there. It's so easy to shut down gaits when training new movements- in fact it's something I've told students to not worry about in the past. But you just simply CAN'T do that with lead changes unless you want shit changes. Really interesting to think about!



Baroque vs Warmbloods

Iberian horses are leg movers, while warmbloods tend to be back movers. This means that Iberian horses use their legs for propulsion and warmbloods use their whole body. And this is why Iberians are usually considered a lot more amateur safe- they keep their legs on the ground when they act up while warmbloods jump into the air. Jeremy said that this stemmed from the purpose of the breed- Iberians were supposed to be quick and stay low to get away from a bull, if a warmblood got scared of the bull and leapt up into the air to get away, the bull would just go stand under the warmblood and wait. While sitting a warmblood's antics is harder, warmbloods tend to have more amateur mentalities- they're slower moving and don't have the busy brain that the Iberians have.

You'd think that a cross would be perfect, right? A warmblood brain in an Iberian horse's body. But you might get stuck with the opposite- a busy brain with a warmblood reaction... like mine. Damnit.

Body mover, busy mind. I gotta think faster with this guy!

Screw Up with Confidence

I went and wrote this on my whiteboard in my tack room.

One of the riders came in on her schoolmaster and told Jeremy that she was afraid of screwing the horse up. And he said "well you will screw him up, we all screw them up, I screw them up, but you know what the difference between you and I is? I'm going to screw up my horse with confidence."

The horse doesn't know you've screwed up when you aid wrong. Let's say you ask Rico to do a canter transition but he does haunches in. If you then go "oh god oh god I did something wrong he's doing haunches in, what should I do?" Rico just learned that he can put his haunches in when you ask for canter to get out of work. If instead, you say "I asked for canter, damnit" and just ride it again, Rico will go straight to work. After all, if you stole him from me, he's your horse so he has to respond to your aids.

Jeremy emphasized that we ARE going to screw our horses up, every one of us, but the important thing is to not let the horse know that you screwed up, just do it again and overthink things later. The reason being is that the horse needs to not lose confidence in the rider, because you can fix training issues later, but if the horse loses confidence in the rider, that's much worse than too little bend in the shoulder-in.

Note here that I think Jeremy was speaking to those riders who become paralyzed with their riding because of self-doubt. I don't think it's in anyone's best interest to start thinking that they can do no wrong and it's always the horse's fault!

I'm going to (and have done it already) screw this horse up, but he
is still convinced that I know everything about dressage!

On Mystical Dressage

Jeremy really emphasized simple. He said not to make dressage into this mystical dance that is very complex. It should be simple. Want to go forward? Kick him. Want to get his head up? Pull it up. Want to slow him down? Pull on the reins. Dressage shouldn't get more complicated as you go up the levels, it should get less complicated. After all, dressage means training, and shouldn't a better trained horse be easier to ride?

I'm a big believer in this too, I love the complex little bits of dressage, but you can never ever lose the forest for the trees.



Every Horse Tries to Get Out of Work

Jeremy said that most horses aren't looking for a fight and aren't problem horses- most of them try to find a quiet way to get out of work because all bodies try to find a way to dissipate its work load. If you put a crack in a dam, the water will rush out, if you compress air, the air will look to dissipate. If you ask a horse to work, they will try to find a way to do it easier, not because they're being bad or don't want to work, but because it's natural.

Horses have different ways of dissipation- some horses go faster, some horses go slower, some horses wiggle. The best solution is to figure out what your horse does and then screw them up with confidence convince them that there's no way to get out of work by doing that.

This guy loved getting out of work

Wiggling

There was a horse in the clinic who would shift their hind legs laterally to get out of having to sit. Jeremy said that whenever the hind legs swing, the horse can't be collected, because in order for the horse's hind end to swing sideways, there needs to be air under there. He said to imagine a forklift- weight on the front end means that the back end swings around for it to turn.

He emphasized to teach the horses at age three that they can't swing their haunches. Then at age four and five (err or um six), they develop engagement faster and easier. Getting a correct haunches-in is easier. Everything is easier.

This makes me feel so happy, because while Rico did have problems swinging his haunches that we battled for years until Tracey fixed us, TC has never, because I always emphasized it with him. This makes a lot of sense, since even though neither horse showed his talent for sitting in his conformation or natural way of going, TC sits a lot better and at a lot lower a level, while I really had to stuff Rico's haunches under him first- it's the training. Definitely going to be even more of a priority for me in the coming years!

Wiggling made getting him to sit so much harder. At least I learned
my lesson with dressage horse number 2!

On Being in Charge

The general horse isn't looking to be the leader. If you put your horse in a herd of ten horses, they will have one leader. If you put your horse in a herd of a hundred horses, there will still be one leader. Most horses are looking to follow, rather than be in charge. And the ones in charge tend to be the most insecure, because they don't trust anyone to lead them so they think they need to do it. The moment they take over is the moment they start feeling insecure, so the rider needs to take over and give the horse confidence.

The more you put a horse to work, the more they trust you to be the leader. Be bossy, but let go a lot. Jeremy said to be like an office manager- go out and tell everyone what to do, but then go back into your office and play solitaire on your computer. When you get bored doing that, go check on everyone's work. No one likes to be micromanaged.


Horses that Lean

Jeremy made me laugh with this, because I heard this so much with Rico and have totally said it to students too.

"If you don't give him something to pull on, he won't pull. But I say fuck you, if you don't give him something to pull on, he won't be on the bit"

So true. With Rico, the leaning went away when we improved his self carriage, and more importantly, when I improved mine. I think that more riders than we think are reliant on their horse's heaviness/leaning for their own balance and that more riders need to work on their own self carriage before insisting the horse carry themselves. Test: ride along and randomly drop the reins, if you even slightly change the way you're sitting, you're using the horse's mouth for balance and the horse will never be in self carriage because you'll prevent it. And that's where I think the phrase comes from (though by the way it's phrased, it causes a lot of people to let go permanently and then Jeremy is right- the horse will never be on the bit).

Finally learned self carriage. Me, and subsequently him.

I drove home after the clinic just bubbling with this information (and more that I didn't write down). The main things I took away with regard to TC is that when he goes to take over (usually in the form of bolting), he's feeling insecure with us. This makes complete sense. He's been bolting MUCH less once as I started being more firm with him about his other habits. It still happens occasionally, but usually after I haven't been as firm with him (like one night when I was talking on the phone to bf while walking him, then went to get on and he dragged me in hand across the arena).

I've really struggled with TC's personality type, and haven't even known what it is- in the pasture he's so submissive, but he can be so dominant with me. I'm learning that it's because I just wasn't being as firm with him as he needed, and what Jeremy said completely supported what I've been working on with him recently and WHY it's getting better.

Eagerly I hopped on TC after the clinic, but it wasn't a great ride. This weather sometimes just kills any progress we try to make because when it's cold and windy, he really struggles a lot more with his busy baroque mind (another ah-ha moment from the clinic- no wonder he's been difficult for me, busy mind + explosive body, Rico only had the latter, he was easy to distract mentally because his brain worked relatively slow).

Didn't know what I was getting into with you, baby horse. Man
he was so scrawny at 4!

But we're heading down this path even through these literal and figurative storms, and honestly I'm still feeling like any path where I get to ride him, however occasionally, is better than the previous path where I wasn't able to ride him at all. Just keep plugging along and hope a dressage horse comes out of it.

Learning to Stop Riding

There are a TON of clinicians coming into the area this fall and I'm so excited.

Over the mountains at a nearby barn, Olivia LaGoy-Weltz comes in 1-2x per year to give lessons. She's a stunning rider, and a really great trainer too. I rode with her a few years ago on Rico, you can read about my lesson here. This last weekend, I found myself with two options for Sunday after my ride. First, to go try not to spend money at the Stanford tack sale. Second, to go audit the lessons. Both were enticing but I need to spend money on tack like I need a hole in the head, so I zipped over the hill to the clinic.

Pictures from my clinic a couple years ago, because Rico is so
much fun to look at

I watched four lessons before I was starving and had to get something to eat before I fainted. I wish I had brought snacks since there were three more lessons to watch! Olivia is intense, she taught straight through starting at 7:45am and ending at 6pm. I asked her about it and she said that she was too nice to say no to people.

I caught the end of the first lesson I watched and it was a good one for me to watch, I really regretted not getting done with TC earlier. The rider had the EXACT crookedness I have and was even riding a gray horse. I smiled, despite having that really horrible day with TC, because I just know that he's going to be the horse with the amateur or junior rider riding with the fancy clinician and just doing his work like a good not bolting not crazy animal. One day...

The rider tipped off her right seat bone and wanted to overconnect on the left rein, allowing her right hand and arm to come forward. So errr maybe she's just me from the future riding TC from the future.

I immediately took a few notes before the lesson ended while she was in left lead canter (also my harder canter direction)-

When the outside seat bone comes off, first check the outside arm, it's hard to tip off the seatbone if the arm is back and down. Think of the upper arms being as part of the upper body, rather than hinging at the shoulder. Let the arm hang straight down and almost think about the elbows being behind your body.

At the canter, make the outside seat bone match the outside hind leg, meaning it should come down before the inside seat bone.  When my doppelganger tipped off her outside seat bone, the seat bone would land after the outside hind leg. So then when she pushed him into the bridle, her timing was off and it actually pushed the horse more to the outside because the balance is already going that way.

My leg was so pretty when Rico was forward

The next rider was on a PSG horse, and it was SUPER fun to watch. Olivia had some really interesting things to say, since the horse was quite hot and very similar to TC. The main issue was that sometimes the horse feels trapped (hey mine feels trapped sometimes) and acts up (hey mine does that).

Olivia's main advice was this: with a horse who feels trapped, don't ask for collection until you have forward, even if the forward feels way way too forward and the horse feels like it's in a First level outline. If the horse is 75% forward and you collect 100%, you're putting a quarter more pressure than you should on the horse and that's a problem.

This really spoke to me at a very low level with TC's balking. When I'm riding a horse, I think of making a channel with my aids, driving the horse through a tube almost (this is my own way of visualizing it, FYI, Olivia would probably have a better way of putting it). As the horse gets older and more trained, the tube can be smaller, more precise. Only allowed to go forward when straight and collected and engaged and etc. When the horse is young, the tube is big, they can go forward this way or that, as long as it's generally in the direction you want.

Tension arises when you try to push the horse into a tube that is too small. If the horse doesn't think they have somewhere to go, then they will go wherever they think they can (so maybe upwards), or try to bust through the aids. TC does both.

Olivia trying to make me ride better

Another thing that came out of that lesson that is going to be relevant in the future is that collection cannot happen with tension. Obviously. But as you go to collect the canter, energy is required. And if the horse has a tense response to the remain more active aids (leg/whip/etc), asking the horse to stay active and collected is not necessarily the right thing to do.

Sometimes you have to let the horse get behind the aids (especially a horse like this horse, who again I feel like is similar to TC) to allow the canter to have more collection in it. She really emphasized that sometimes you have to compromise on the responsiveness of the horse to get their body tone (tension) to lower. Pick moments when you can say react quicker damnit, but you can't jazz the horse up all the time if he carries any tension.

TC hasn't gotten to a point where tension is caused by anything other than his spookiness and bolting. But this was really good information, and made me feel better about what I'm doing. I've been yelled at so many times to not nag that I worry sometimes that I'm teaching TC to be behind my leg. But honestly, he's so damn forward and willing, that I sort of let myself get away with it. So validation. But I still shouldn't nag.

So much half pass that day

The last thing I got out of the lessons came from the last lesson I watched (the third lesson was GREAT, but I was chatting with people for a lot of it and it was a lead change lesson, TC is far from doing changes and I'm pretty good at them already).

This rider wanted to do too much for their horse. They had a really funny exchange, where Olivia said "I want you to be patient and I want it RIGHT NOW." That's honestly how I feel about my damn horse in the cross ties- BE PATIENT DAMN IT! I don't have patience for his impatience.

Olivia's main advice was to just stop. Don't ride, let the horse carry himself without rider influence for a bit so you can evaluate how things are going and choose to add to the gait later. This is huge, and I think one of my strengths. I tend to feel like horses are way greener and crooked than they appear to be because I'm lazy and refuse to work hard to keep a horse together. I love TC because you literally just sit there and ride him quietly. No holding him, no shoving with the seat, no tap tap tapping with the whip, no nagging (well, other than what I mentioned before). Just get out of his way and let him do what he's going to do.

I'm so grateful I rode him like that from the get go, and honestly it wasn't all me- he's not the sort of horse you can push around very easily, so I probably couldn't have held him together even if I tried. Olivia really drove it home that you absolutely have to be able to ride neutrally before you can make positive changes to the horse. Yes. I love that. Also love validation.

It's really hard to be neutral though, I was teaching a lesson on it just last night. My rider is relearning to sit the trot and tends to want to balance on the reins (but not in the way you're thinking- basically if you can't drop the reins at any given point and stay balanced, newsflash, you're balancing on the connection even if you're not leaning back against it) and grip with the leg to hold herself on. If the balance isn't perfection, there is no neutral riding. Ugh dressage is hard.

Equal opportunity tipping

So much more happened at the clinic that I just can't quite remember or hasn't sunken in yet. It was a GREAT clinic though, and I highly recommend her both for riding and auditing. I learned so much and can't wait to get to the point where I can apply all of it to TC. And obviously can't wait until I can ride with her, even if most of the lesson is telling me to get out of his way and sit down on my right seat bone.

Auditing the Bombproofing Clinic

On Sunday I got done with Rico and then had some things shift around where I suddenly had about an hour to kill.

I was really glad to have that, because at the neighbor arena where I rode TC for so long was an amazing clinic that I would have LOVED to take TC to: a bombproofing clinic.

Already pretty good at tarps

I got there late, not having planned on going necessarily, so I didn't see any of the instruction. But I saw enough to solidify my desire to get TC to one of these clinics within the next year. Based on their website, I assume the clinic started with going through every obstacle and teaching the people how to introduce their horses to it, since I saw some definite progressions people were using. Then it sounds like you can either go do the obstacles on your own, or you can stick with the instructors in a small group.

There were some normal things you'd expect- some ground poles and then some larger plastic piping that horses were walking over. And there were small raised bridges to walk over too. But the majority of the obstacles were pretty interesting.

There were two mattresses that were placed next to each other so that the corners were touching but nothing else. One mattress was a thin twin mattress and the other was a thick, possibly full sized mattress. People started by walking the horses over the corners that were touching so they had to walk over the mattresses without stepping on them. Then people would introduce first to the thinner mattress, then to the thick one. Some of the horses were SUPER disturbed by the feeling of the mattress and quickly zipped off of them. I bet it feels weird to them.

Behind the mattresses was a tarp. People were mostly just walking over it, but one rider had their horse turn in small circles on it, which made the tarp crinkle more. None of the horses seemed too disturbed by the tarp, in this crazy arena, it was definitely the tamest obstacle.

Along the rail there was two pieces of plywood that made a chute/short hallway of sorts. Both pieces had holes in them and at first I was confused, but then I saw the pool noodles on the ground next to them. That was the first exercise that I got the urge to make myself. Horses were walking through it with just one noodle in it and were doing exactly what TC might do (he doesn't mind pool noodles but small spaces...): scoot through it. Eventually all the horses in the group I was walking through were really good about it, and then people started reining back through them. Cool!

Kind of in the middle of the ring was... trash. Horses had to walk through plastic bottles and pool noodles and paper scraps and all sorts of things that made noise as you walked through. There was also a wood box that the horses walked through (stepped in, walked through, stepped out- it was about 8' long) too. I think there might have been something in it as well, but I couldn't quite see.

Can kind of see the random pile of trash in the middle of the ring

I wandered to the other side of the arena to get a better look at a few things. There was this barrel sitting upright with the top of it covered with a plywood disc. Attached to the disc was a pulley system that allowed you to pull the top of the barrel up from the back of your horse. Under the disc was a stuffed monkey covered in caution tape. That alone REALLY amused me. As did the one lady saying "a monkey in a barrel? What the fuck is THIS supposed to be equivalent to?"

I mean she had a point, lots of the obstacles were things you'd see on the trail- have to walk across a swamp (mattress), have to walk across a bridge (bridge platforms), have to walk over stuff (pile of trash + poles), have to open a gate, have to not be scared of noise/things coming at you, etc. The monkey just seemed hilarious in comparison. But as a person with a horse with a serious flight instinct though, I want monkeys to be able to leap out of barrels without him bolting. I don't care if that is not a situation he will ever be in, I want his brain to be able to handle a herd of monkeys leaping out of barrels all around him and advancing on his face and he needs to just stand still til I tell him we can leave.

WTF indeed

Next to the monkey was a pan of water. One horse was outright refusing to get in it and kept jumping over it. The lady was confused because she said her horse was totally fine with water. I could see Rico doing the same thing. Rico hates puddles and smaller things of water, but he'll go right into the cross country water at the horse park. TC loves water in general so would probably make a bee line for that pan of water.

Next to the water was what seemed to be the beginner station- just some plastic discs on the ground that you could get your horse to sniff/stand on, and some tires. But then someone came over and picked up a big water jug (lol I just thought it was water) and shook it over his horse- it was filled with rocks so it made noise. There was also a bag with cans that a woman picked up and was putting on her horse. Those are super easy/cheap to make so I'm definitely thinking about doing that for TC this summer...

Monkey on the right side of the screen

My favorite obstacle was on the other side of the arena. It was basically two barrels on their side with pvc pipes set up like a flintstone's car so it was pretty heavy and rolled when you pushed/pulled it. At first someone walked up and just kind of pushed at it from the saddle. Then another person walked her horse straight at the cart and had the horse push it forward with their chest. I think TC would be amazing at that seeing as he goes through anything and everything in his way.

Then someone went on the other side of it and grabbed the rope and started to haul it with their horse. When the horse realized that, he immediately took off. But the guy just held onto it and they went careening forward for a few steps before the guy stopped the horse and the horse calmed down. GOALS (for TC, Rico wouldn't care since he's a driving horse). TC and I are going to be dragging a lot of things this summer!

Rico is on the left side of the cart looking bored

I ended up having to take off before meeting anyone and demanding that they come back this summer asking questions. But the clinic gave me SO many good ideas for TC.

First, just being able to cope with things around him happening. I'm really bad about that too, and some of the riders were like me and got caught up in what their horses were doing. Others just ignored their horses and sat quietly while the horse did whatever. I want to be better at that, I want to BE man whose horse freaks about rolling cart while man doesn't let go.

So first of all, I think I need to employ BRH trainer to try to (lightly) spook/distract TC me with stuff while I'm riding. Maybe I can spook him while BRH trainer is riding him first.

Second, the obstacles were great. I think I need to think about what obstacles would get TC bolty and do those at home as much as possible. Dragging things is huge, since he hasn't done that. I think getting him in tight spaces- like with the pool noodles- and having things pop out of him- like frightening monkeys- would do it too.

Totally okay with flags though

On the way out I called my mom to tell her about it, since she might have wanted to go watch. I told her that I wanted to take TC to it, but that I knew it'd be stressful so I sort of wanted to selfishly take Rico to it instead because it'd be more fun for me since he doesn't scare me or have a bolt/panic button. Obviously if I go (I want to find another one to audit again first so I can see the instruction) I'll be taking TC, but I kept seeing horses spook at stuff or refuse to do things and the only thing I could think the whole time was "Rico would do that obstacle."

She asked how much it was and I told her. Then she got to scheming. Her horse, Stretch, is going to be retired, probably this fall. He's 25 and isn't really able to do the amount of trail riding she wants to do. I've been pushing Rico on her, since Rico is perfect for what she wants to do- he is the same horse whether you ride him every day or every two months, he is extremely quiet (unlike Stretch who has a spin and bolt in him), and he isn't spooky at all.

But he makes my mom nervous because he's big and powerful (and she knew him in his younger years when he had a rearing problem). She also just doesn't know him. I know without a doubt how he will handle any situation. I know what he will spook at and how he will spook if he does spook at something.

She proposed that SHE take Rico to the clinic. Not for his benefit (although I think he'd love it), but for hers. She could experience how bold he is in a safe environment (in the arena vs in the open) and could learn what he does at the rare times that he does spook.

They are an awesome match!

I was STOKED about the idea. Having Rico there would be great for me and TC, since Rico could lead us through some of the exercises and I know that Rico wouldn't do anything if TC ran into him or freaked out next to him. And my mom could learn how solid Rico is and how he approaches things that do make him nervous, since I'm sure one of those things will make him nervous.

I'm so so excited, even if it's potentially a year away since some years they only come to this area once (although their mailing address is near by, wonder if my BO would want to host one this summer). I'm excited both for TC to experience something like this and for my mom to get more confident on Rico. And just to see Rico doing this stuff, see how all my own makeshift bomb proofing training paid off with him.

In the mean time, I may or may not be building some of these obstacles in my free time. I need my baby horse to get better first though, he's the king of unexpected vet bills that can ruin even the cheapest of projects.

Auditing Axel Steiner

Friday morning at 6am I woke up (okay actually I first woke up at 4am scared that my alarm wouldn't go off because I'm type-A even when I sleep) and zipped out the door to beat traffic out of the bay to audit the Axel Steiner clinic a few hours north.

The clinic was right down the street from where Nicole and Peony board their horses! So we hung out at the clinic and visited ponies during the lunch break. I got to meet Murray (and his boyfriend haha), Stubby (who was being kind of a nut and showing off her fancy trot), and Spot (who we turned out in a GREEN PASTURE, I'm so jealous), along with a lot of other adorable horses. Overall, it was a great day and a great way to do a blogger meetup too.

Plus so you all know, Peony is an excellent bringer of snacks which was much appreciated because I have been known to starve at clinics because I'll get food after this horse. Just like when we were leaving- "I should probably head out... but after this horse" and ended up staying an additional two hours to finish the clinic. Whatever, going back to the bay isn't as bad as leaving the bay in terms of traffic, so I only hit a small amount. Worth it.

More pictures from the show because no pictures were taken
at the clinic!

So cute

For those who don't know him, Axel is a former FEI 5* judge, current S judge, part of the L judging faculty, and is a USEF judge examiner. Basically he knows a LOT of things about dressage and it was great to watch him teach.

A few things that stood out:

- Axel helped a lady on a PSG horse work through walk pirouettes and it was really fascinating to see. I had many a lesson on walk pirouettes with Rico and have taught them to a few students, but watching Axel teach an FEI rider on the subject was SO helpful. We could really see the difference as he insisted that the horse's inside hind leg stay under rather than stepping laterally (Rico's biggest issue) and there were moments where the walk pirouette totally transformed.

Hurry up and wait

Retracting his neck is his favorite

- New exercises! I wish I still had Rico going because TC isn't ready for any of the cool new things that came up. My favorite exercise was canter half pass left from H to X, at X, full pirouette left, then immediately half pass left from X to F. It really tested the rider's ability to control the canter in and out of the pirouette, as it's easy to lose momentum in the pirouette or overturn, which was this rider's issue.

- He also emphasized coming in pretty powerful to a pirouette, which is what I had to do with Rico as well. In a perfect world, which we all strive to live in but few actually do, you would show pirouette canter for 2-3 steps, full pirouette, show pirouette canter coming out for 2-3 steps, and then leave gracefully. In the real world, sometimes starting in a bigger canter and letting the pirouette put the horse into collection makes for a better executed pirouette. I liked hearing that because I heard that a lot on Rico and wasn't sure how much of a modification that was because he was so green.

- We also got to see a trot transform using passage. This is another thing that I've experienced as a rider but have only seen a few times. The horse was a beautiful mover, but had a better canter than trot. The trot wasn't bad at all, but it got flat and fast sometimes. Axel had the rider bring the horse into passage, then open up the passage into more of a trot and find the passage within the trot. He also had her switch between posting and sitting to try to get the horse's back to free up a bit more. It worked and was amazing to watch. The horse became a lot more cadenced and had a lot more suspension. When can I put passage on TC again??

This trot could use passage, I could use stretching down in my
leg and a more open hip angle

Why won't I sit on my right seatbone?

- Axel pointed out something in a rein back that I had never seen (or noticed, I'd probably seen it) before, that sometimes the rein back can lose rhythm. Never even considered it a thing that could happen, despite reading about how a rein back is two beats with no moment of suspension. Does that not describe rhythm? If so, does that not mean that a horse who breaks that rhythm could be losing rhythm in the rein back? It was a big "oh, duh" moment.

- One of the themes that I noticed between riders was that Axel was adamant about clear transitions between collected to medium and medium to collected. He kept telling people to make the transitions count because there are separate scores for those. He also reminded us that the judge decides the score at the END of the movement and so if you let the horse peder out in a medium trot (or half pass), the score will be lower than you may deserve.

His neck is so pretty sometimes!

Walking out

- He was a huge fan of shoulder-in for engagement. He emphasized using it to strengthen the inside hind leg (and had some funny comments to go along with it) and said it was fine to be on three tracks or even three and a quarter (so a bit more angle than three) tracks. He used it on multiple horses throughout the day.

- Test riding. He had almost all of the riders ride a test, which is not something I normally see at clinics and it was fun to watch. I think a lot of the riders were showing this coming weekend so that may have explained it. We got to see a few training tests, a 1-2, a couple of 3-3s, a PSG, and a Fourth level freestyle. The freestyle was amazing, the music fit the horse perfectly and the horse was gorgeous too.

- Apparently he told the freestyle rider (this was reiterated to us) that only 10% of people should attempt freestyles at a given level. I'm not sure the reasoning behind that. I guess I'm a believer that freestyles are fun and you should do what you want (I think he meant that 10% of people would produce really good freestyles), but it makes sense that you need to be SUPER solid at the level before attempting a freestyle and that some people probably do them a bit early for fun because by the time they're as solid as they should be at the level, they're wanting to move up. I'd love to get my bronze freestyle bar on TC but they're a lot of work.

Square in front! But distracted. He always looks like he's going
to fall on his face when he stands still. Damn conformation.

So pretty!

Overall it was super fun. Axel was a great clinician and there was a huge variety of riders to watch and learn from. Even some Training/First level horses, which were much more relevant to where TC is, but I also feel like my FEI education is continuing (slowly). The work on the walk pirouettes, the canter pirouettes, and the passage was all very helpful in my understanding, even if TC will never make it to the point where he is performing those exercises and it will be years from now before I grace the FEI ring again. And meeting Peony, Nicole, and the horses was icing on the cake.