Do Less

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

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

TC with his new fly mask

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

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

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

Said vacation included riding on this sea plane!

I called him "eyeballs" for a while

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

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

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

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

Eyeballs eyeing the cows

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

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

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

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

TC also got some bombproofing

And I climbed all over him

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

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

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

They even played in the sprinklers
together and he loved it

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

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

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

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

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

Lots of tractor work recently for me

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

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

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

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

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

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

Straightness and Connection

Over the weekend, I had really good rides on TC! 

I rode in the arena on Friday and Monday, and then Saturday we did a trail ride at home and on Sunday he had the day off since I had a prior obligation that kept me away from the barn. 

Requires cookies

Does not require hugs, rider wanted a hug though

My ride right after our trail ride last week (I think Tuesday?) wasn't the best. I think he was tired and just a little above where he needed to be, not really lifting through his shoulders. But he also only had the one day off in between. I did more face pulling than I had been doing and I ended up cutting the ride a little short. We did a trail ride at home on Wednesday and that was great, then he had Thursday off. 

Friday I came out and ended up riding in the middle of the day. After sleeping VERY well for two weeks, I told people I was sleeping well AND I got my hopes up that after eight years of insomnia, I'd finally fixed it; so naturally, I haven't been able to sleep a lick since.

It was a bit hot, so TC and I struggled a little through the warm up. I'm still not quite sure how to approach the warm up with him. I tend to get a little frustrated that he starts out slow (not balky, but like, could you have an ounce more power in any of your gaits) and I'm sure he's frustrated that I want to skip the warm up and jump right into doing work when he's now fifteen years old and has some joint stuff. 

Lots of ranch work this weekend, pastures got
mowed!

And trails got widened/worked on!

I've tried employing what I did with Rico years ago, which is to canter first. But this horse is not a canter horse, if we do that, his canter just feels lethargic and gross. So we trot first, doing big circles and some easy transitions. Then we canter and it's absolutely fine. And then finally when we come back to trot, he seems happy to work. 

Again, acknowledging that being happy to work hasn't really been him at any point of his rides the last few years, so it's great that we can get there!

I can't quite remember exactly what we worked on that day, but most of my work these days are on:

1. Remembering that I know how to ride horses

2. Shoulder-in

3. Counter canter loops

4. Walk to canter

And now reading that back, it sounds like we're schooling Second level. We are not! I just find that these exercises are really good for us. 

Oh hello counter canter!?

Shoulder-in, which we also did on Monday, has been super helpful for getting him to find more stability in his body and finding the diagonal connection from the inside hind leg over his body to the outside rein. Tracking left, he feels pretty good, but tracking right, he really struggles. He wants to come a little above the outside rein and twist his neck. 

Counter canter loops, and on Monday, 20m half circles in counter canter, have been great for the straightness and the connection. He again gets kinda twisty in his body and my enthusiasm for pulling on the left rein means that we go careening sideways in canter sometimes. 

And finally, the walk to canter transition is something he's long been good at and enjoys, but he likes to jump to the outside of the line during the transition, AND it's obvious to me when he does it AND I'm a better canter rider than trot. So I figure that I can help him find straightness in the transition and that this will help us find straightness in the canter in general. 

So a friend told me that putting a fake
dragonfly on your horse keeps flies
away and I think it's so funny (and I 
kind of think it works?)

And he's just happy?

The remembering how to ride horses thing keeps happening. I haven't had that many lessons since 2020, and even then I was mostly riding alone. Which is FINE I was a professional. Now I am not, I'm deep in amateurdom after years of not really riding. I'm also not nearly as fit as I was before and am super out of practice. 

On Friday, I remember going along thinking, wow, he's kinda down in his shoulder, bummer. And then a circle or two later I was like OH, what if I... asked him not to be. And I put my leg on and kinda bumped him up under himself and he said yes! And then it all went so so much better. 

Then on Monday, and if my Pivo hadn't been such an asshole, I'd have a hilarious video, because I was trotting and kind of lamenting about how unstable I felt in the trot, like he kept falling out in this one place and I was just letting him do it and reacting to it rather than preventing it. And I think I said out loud right near the camera "oh my god I could use my abs for this" and again the ride went much better. 

Remember how you have abs?

So much reach with his hind end now

Luckily I find this just hilarious. I'm truly enjoying experiencing both sides of the coin. I put so much pressure on myself to ride well and learn as much as I could and be USDF Gold Medalist Megan. And now I get to be an amateur, and I'm learning SO much about myself and about horses and about dressage from this other side. Maybe I should write down what the differences feel like. 

Anyway, what it means is that I can remain in really good spirits about the whole thing. When I forget how to ride horses it just cracks me up, like people used to pay me to do this and now I'm like oh woops, why is my hand over there? How long has it been like that? Have I always done that?

Truly I'm having the time of my life no matter what is going on with my riding. 

A Great Ride

I had probably the best ride of our rehab so far yesterday so I wanted to document it! 

For context, the last three rides looked like this:

Thursday 12/18 - I posted about that in my last post

Friday 12/19 - We went on a trail ride for about an hour. He was really good and didn't have any spooking/balking. I did some lateral work on the hills, specifically working on strengthening his left hind leg. 

Saturday 12/20 - We had an okay ride, I was glad to get some video and I really noticed that he seemed plenty forward when watching him, but I know he felt behind my leg. He had a couple of small hesitations (I wouldn't even call them balks) but outside of that he was compliant. At the end of our ride, I finally got annoyed and really hustled him along, and then we ended on a good note. But in the video he was 

THEN I took him on the tracks and he seemed perky, so I let him pick up the trot on the back lane (a long, wide, slightly uphill section that spans almost the entire length of the property behind the pastures) and then had the idea that maybe I could let him canter out there. He picked up canter really easily and loped up the hill until he got a little tired. 

Our last day on the trails for a while, bummer!

I figured that we should do the other lead, so I walked him back down to the bottom of the back lane and then asked him to canter again. This time he really went for it, so I got up in half seat and let him go. He was gaining speed though, and I'm like... pretty aware that my vet called him borderline neuro last time we went to see him, so I asked TC to maybe keep it contained. TC took that as an invitation to leap into the air, so then I kicked him forward and decided that I'd just lean back a bit just in case! 

Finally we were getting to the normal spot where he poops out, so I sat back and was anticipating him stopping. He did not stop, he again took that as a cue to leap even HIGHER into the air and I almost came off. I was hanging off the right side of him and somehow managed to yell "well, don't lose me!?!" and he scooped me back up. I then made him continue cantering all the way up the steeper part of the hill when he finally stopped.

It did kind of scare me though, so I forced the poor horse back down the back lane to do it AGAIN, and this time we did a very controlled, easy canter for maybe eighteen strides before I let him walk and cool out. Looking back, it was super fun! Fun to feel him so enthusiastic about moving forward. 

Sunday 12/21 - I gave him and myself the day off, he was locked in for the day because of the rain, but was then let back out on Monday morning. 

He's such a good trail horse

So then yesterday I drove down to the ranch over my lunch break, and I was glad to see that my arena was useable! I dragged it and then went to get TC out.

I started to target train his right hind leg - I want to ask him to step toward the target, specifically taking a step away from his body with his right hind and aiming to touch his gaskin with the target. He didn't really understand it at first, but we did get some good movement. I think it'll take a few days. This is mostly because his right hind is stuffed up under his body ALL the time, even in the cross ties. And as he's (slowly) putting on muscle, I'm noticing that his right hind is lacking muscle just above the stifle in comparison to the left hind. Anyway, hopefully this can help him!

Love this spot looking down on the ranch!

We then started our ride by walking down the road, which I've been avoiding doing too much for his feet. He does love it though, and he got to see all his horse and cow friends. I tried to show him the new pig that the neighbor got but it was too far away and he was focusing on something else. 

Once in the arena, I had decided to be more structured with my ride. Using my interval timer, you'd think I'd be coordinated in general, but I haven't been. So for each of our eight 2 minute 15 second intervals (4 sets of 1 interval + 1 minute rest + 1 interval each and then he gets a longer break) I had a plan going into them. 

Set 1: Warm Up

I warmed TC up with large figures, working on establishing a connection and bend in each direction. We also worked a little bit on just being responsive to the aids. I didn't care if he maintained it or if he was just being a little more forward, just that he responded at all. He got lots of praise! I also asked him to very briefly canter in each direction for 3/4 of a large circle. Not caring if he was on the bit or anything, just wondering if that might loosen him up.

Set 2: Lateral Work + Lengthenings

On Saturday I had played with an exercise where we'd do some lateral work down the long sides of the arena and then we'd straighten, counter flex, and lengthen on the short sides. I figure that this will help him with his straightness, as well as give him confidence that when I ask him to go forward I'm not going to just chase him endlessly. And it works well with my plan to not ask him to do as hard of work when he's moving forward and to ask him to work a little harder if he's moving slower. 

Set 3: Shallow Loop + 15m Circles

For this exercise, I really wanted to test the connection and the coordination of his hind legs after priming him to be more aware of them from the second set. We did shallow loops down the longside and then every other loop, we'd ride a 15 meter circle at the top of the arena. It was a good way for me to really focus on the way that he used his hind legs and not to just shove them around, and it was good to see how he used himself on the 15 meter circle too. We also did a couple of long diagonals in a lengthened trot, since he was starting to kind of feel himself during this exercise and he seemed to think those were fun!

Such a fun day

Set 4: 10-10-10 Canter Trot Transitions

I decided to take a bit of a risk and do more cantering this ride. In the past, the canter was a source of a lot of balking. About half the time I asked last year, he'd either buck in place, run sideways, kick at my leg, or just stop and stick his head straight up in the air. So throughout this rehab, I've avoided cantering him too much. 

However, one of his favorite exercises (and mine too) was this 10-10-10 exercise I love for unresponsive horses. You trot for 10 strides, then canter for 10 strides, then trot for 10 strides, and so on. The goal is to get EXACTLY ten strides, no more no less. With Rico, and TC in the past, I'd then start to lower the numbers, so trot for 9 strides, canter for 9 strides, and so on. Rico was able to do this at like 2-3 strides, which is CRAZY to think about now! TC would consistently be able to do maybe 6? I forget to be honest. 

He super lit up in this exercise, and so did I. I actually had to half halt him at the trot, and sometimes he'd even slip into canter early. To the right, we were dead on accurate, but to the left he was a little reluctant to do all 10 canter strides. I made it a rule not to get after him about that, just to bring him to trot and start the counting again. 

I didn't have him do this the entire 2 minutes 15 seconds in each direction, I ended up doing maybe 3-4 of them and then keeping him in trot, mostly just working on large figures and enjoying how forward he was (and praising him for it!). 

The ranch is so casually beautiful

It was the best ride we've had in SO long! I felt like we could really work on things the two of us together rather than it being me against him trying to convince him to be forward and him trying to convince me to not make him be forward. 

The best part was how much he seemed to enjoy it too. Not just the last set, but the entire time he seemed really mentally engaged with the work. I can't remember when he was last like that with dressage work. During our foray into jumping last winter, I felt like I had that back, but then things got bad again. Hopefully this can be maintained through the winter and into next year! 

TC got to meet the neighbor's new pig after our
ride and he was SO excited (he actually scared
the pig at first by charging up to it)

I'll ride him again today and hopefully we can replicate some of this good work. And then Christmas Eve I'm planning on doing some groundwork in the barn (maybe targeting his butt cheeks again) since it will be raining all day. And Christmas Day I'm at my aunts' house all day which is convenient because it's going to rain all day again. I think it's alright if he gets a couple of days off after all of that work! 

My plan is to still get his neck injected and maybe talk to the vet about how he uses his right hind. I'm kind of thinking that an SI injection might not be a bad idea? I want to figure out how many joints is possible with what is leftover after the initial injections last month and prioritize them. We can always pull more blood but again I'm trying to take this slow! 

Trusting the Process

I'm ecstatic to say that going back to TC's walk/trot abduction work fixed his balking problem and I've got my horse back better than ever! I'm so excited to be able to just trust the process and to have people in my corner who are on a similar journey to give me confidence when we back track. 

I had an amazing ride on TC on Friday, then he got Saturday off because my niece's birthday party was going on. Then Sunday, we had probably the best ride of our entire career together. 

As an aside, I'd like to brag and say that I'm really good at indoctrinating children into riding horses despite not really being a kid person. There were four kids there including my niece and all got to ride Sunny. None of them wanted to get off the pony, one of them actually leaned away from my brother as he went to grab him off the pony and then he was grabbing at the saddle trying to get back on. You love to see it. 

LOOK AT THIS HORSE

Back to TC, who is not suitable for children's birthday parties only because of his complete and utter enthusiasm for life which, when combined with his size, is akin to a bull in a china shop. He got to watch from afar and got a few cookies. 

But the rides, wow. I am so impressed by the work that we are doing right now. He is absolutely stepping up to the plate and is the most uphill and collected I've ever felt him be. He's insanely powerful, this horse, I can't believe it. 

Is it mildly unnerving? Absolutely. But I've kind of tricked my brain by telling myself to imagine that I'm riding Rico at the Grand Prix. If a Grand Prix horse felt the way TC felt, especially Rico, I'd be excited, not scared! That helped a ton on Sunday and I was actually able to sit down and ride the horse rather than kind of sit up there while my brain is like SHUT IT DOWN, YOUR BLOCKS AREN'T BIG ENOUGH FOR THIS SHIT. 

It's still really hard to convince my brain to ride the horse though, so I'm mostly working on that while putting TC through the exercises we've been assigned. 

The moment your horse sees a bird and abandons
his task to pounce on it

The canter has been improving like crazy recently. I've noticed that as his canter gets better, he canters around in his pasture more. Whether he's feeling better with all the abduction work so he's cantering around in his pasture more so he's feeling more confident cantering undersaddle... or whether he's doing better undersaddle cantering so he's celebrating by cantering more in his pasture... who knows. But either way, the horse is cantering a ton right now. 

For a long time, we could get a half lap around the arena (a bit wider than a short court) to the right and 4-5 strides of canter to the left. Now we are up to a full lap around the arena to the right pretty consistently and on Sunday, he cantered all the way around to the left! 

I want to steadily increase the number of laps of canter we do until he's confident cantering in the new posture for however long he needs to. We are not going to show any time soon, but I still have that 3-3 canter pattern burned into my mind. He needs to do a lot of cantering this year. 

I love the split behind and how uphill he is

The trot is just fabulous. I've started to add in some lateral work occasionally and also some lengthenings. 

The lateral work is shockingly easy now that he's feeling really good. I haven't touched the half passes but everything else feels great. I can shift him into a leg yield or shoulder-in by just shifting my weight. The haunches-in is still a bit tricky but I struggle with that on every horse I ride, so that is likely my issue. 

The lengthenings are terrifying and we haven't even done them for real yet. The ring is too small to do any sort of actual extension so we've just played with some forward and back. He's a powerhouse. How in the world am I going to sit this shit eventually? 

If you're like "Megan, you look like you're in the
fetal position" you'd be correct, his gaits have gotten
really scary lately lol

I'm so over the moon with this work. He is the happiest and most comfortable he's ever been in his work. I took off his flash and the noseband is literally as loose as it will go (I am going to probably get an extender for it or just replace the crank strap to make it even looser just for kicks, I want it positively hanging off of him). He's full of joy and therefore still leaps into the air sometimes, but all kicking at my leg, balking, and general irritation at my aids is completely gone. He tries super hard at everything I ask for, there is not a hint of "no" in this horse anymore. 

Mostly, I'm just excited that I'm able to do it myself. I want to take lessons, and I have access to some amazing instructors through the work, but the pathway is so clear to me right now that I just don't feel the need. 

WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK

I do want to get another lesson with our main bodyworker clinician because she's going to take some time off to have a baby soon. After that, we'll try to ride with two other clinicians who work closely with her. One is an amazing clicker training trainer who I want to have help me with TC's emotional regulation, basically when he gets himself super amped, there's too much celebration and explosiveness for my preference. The other is a biomechanics expert! She's not a Mary person, but she's very very good.

I think those two trainers, who work alongside the bodyworker clinician, are going to be the key to really getting the most out of my horse. At this point, I feel like if I can get my shit together biomechanically and if I can reel in TC's expressions of joy without diminishing the feeling that goes along with it, this horse is going to be unstoppable. 

Rewriting the Circle of Aids

Without a trainer, I've been just kind of going through my own basics and filling in some holes that were left after the last year of riding TC in a way I wasn't a fan of. Try to get back to my own roots and theories in training rather than immediately jumping on board with another trainer. The right situation will present itself, I'm sure. 

Coming along well

I've been focusing as much as possible on the circle of aids and how each interact with him and with one another, trying to kind of rewrite the basics on this horse back to what they were like when we started working together. At the beginning, I had this really idealized way I was riding him from my leg to my hand and having him very sensitive to my seat. Somewhere along the line, I was told to add a lot of negative tension to him to get the power necessary for big scores and we lost a lot of the subtlety in our aid system. I really haven't loved the way he was going since 2019. 

I told myself it was just because he was an off breed or whatever, he isn't going to ever look like a horse worth 10x as much. But at the end of the day, if I don't like the way he is going, I don't like the way he is going. And if that's the way he needs to go to be able to do the higher levels, I don't want to do the higher levels on him then. I think I can change things for us though. I think it's possible to train him to the upper levels in a way that doesn't make me cringe when I see video or pictures. 

I'm so happy having his neck back! It's been a while

So, the circle of aids. I teach it pretty aggressively to my students. The leg signals to the hind legs to generate power which travels through the horse's back and is regulated by the seat and received by the hand. The aids have to be in balance with one another and therefore the horse must be responsive to each in the correct way. Not enough leg and there's not enough energy flowing through the system. Not enough seat and the energy doesn't recycle and instead dumps too much into the bridle, causing a horse like TC to retract the neck (or others to lean into the contact). Backwards thinking hands crumple the neck but not enough contact and the energy doesn't recycle effectively so the horse gets strung out. 

TC is responsive to the leg (connecting leg aid = upper calf, energizing leg aid = spur/heel/bump with my ankle) and he follows the hand well when the circle of aids are working. But the seat needed some help, so we did a lot of transitions from the walk to the halt and from the halt to the walk, then also some work from walk to trot from the seat alone to help him understand that the rhythm needed to be determined by my seat, not by speed or energy. A lot of the time he seems to lose balance from walk to trot, picking up the trot as a way to rebalance himself, so we're doing a lot of those transitions to reshape them. 

What a good boy

But then the actual connecting of the hind legs to the hand, that doesn't just happen by hammering the leg on because sending too much power through a back that is not supple is just going to cause tension and that's no good. The back has to be like a hose, not kinked either due to tension or due to crookedness. 

This is where I go to the Xs I wrote about a while back. Connecting the left leg to the right rein and the right leg to the left rein using some suppling exercises like spiraling in and out, shallow leg yields, and shoulder-fore to unkink the hose and allow energy through. The diagonal movement across his body of the energy prevents him from tightening his back and therefore I'm pretty much guaranteed that he steps through to the outside rein... as long as the outside thigh works properly to bring his shoulder around. 

It sometimes does and sometimes does not, so when it doesn't, that's when we shift gears to the shoulder-fore or shoulder-in. Spiraling out and then transitioning to shoulder-fore down the long side, then spiraling in and out on the opposite side of the arena and rinse, repeat. 

Actually lifting the base of his neck and
keeping his chest plate up, phew

At the trot, once I find the lateral suppleness, the circle of aids is not too hard to find. I've been on my own case to keep my leg aids different from one another. Upper calf stays on almost all the time to direct the energy, but bumping with my ankle or touching with my whip can generate more energy. Honestly, he doesn't need a lot of energy generation when the pathway for it is so clear and there's no blockage from my seat or hand. 

The seat regulates the energy, it controls how much gets sent to my hand to create enough reach in the bridle to prevent tightness in the back while recycling the rest of it to the hind legs to create engagement and eventually collection. Send too much energy to the hand and he's going to lose balance. Send too little and he's going to retract and then tighten his back and dump his shoulders down. Try to recycle too much to the hind legs and he'll stall out because he's not strong enough. Not enough and oh, a First level horse. The seat aids have  to... work... though. And that's what we worked on earlier last week because again, we lost a lot of subtlety with the aid system, namely the seat. So we did a lot of transitions and now I can regulate the energy much easier. 

Then the hand. I ask myself a lot of questions to make sure we are on the right path. Who is making the weight in the reins, me or him? If I push my hand slightly forward, does he reach without losing his vertical chest plate? If someone came along and cut my reins, would I have a momentary loss of balance? The hand is the toughest thing for me, TC is so light and feels better in the contact when he's leaning on me than when he's not. So I have to check on it a lot. 

Love this posture

Canter is a bit different. There's just something about his canter that makes me want to take my leg off and pull on his face. That's unhelpful. I realized that somewhat early last week and took a walk break and tried to dissect it. I finally came to the conclusion that I had no idea why I wanted to do that (the only answer I had was "he might... do something bad? But probably not?"), so I was just going to force myself to ride the canter properly, get my leg on, seat bones plugged in and emphasizing the backswing, and push my hand forward. And wouldn't you know it, he went better. Sometimes trusting the feel works and sometimes you just have to ignore it and ride better even if your instinct is that something bad will happen if you do? Dressage is hard.  

The canter is TOUGH to ride like that though, but it feels and looks fabulous. I think it's hard for him too because he drops out from under me sometimes, so we've had to feed more energy through the circle of aids. He also is more likely to retract the neck in canter, so I've had to really focus on my bear down to press his neck forward into my hand. 

The Xs are hard to find in the canter because of the nature of the gait, so the suppleness lacks at canter and he is able to get his neck back at me quite easily, even when I feel like the circle of aids is mostly okay. So we've been doing a lot of haunches-in and some shoulder-fore in canter to try to find a better connection and more lateral suppleness. 

Split behind definitely getting better

So then with this circle of aids now being better, it's about building strength to hold it through movements. Realizing that a lot of our movements are ridden front to back is frustrating, given how much I've spent on lessons in the past. But whatever. 

TC tends to lose balance in his lateral work and press his chest plate down and then I have to take back on the reins to hold him back (and that's only obvious when I force my hand forward and find that he won't seek contact and instead speeds up), so we've been doing a lot of walk-trot and trot-walk transitions in shoulder-in. Once the shoulder-in is good, I'll do the same in haunches-in and then we'll start fixing the half passes. No wondering why he can't bend in those anymore. 

The canter work is surprisingly decent in the new posture, I think because I'm inherently a better canter rider and I find that it's more obvious to me when he drops his shoulders in the canter because it becomes really hard to ride. We are mostly doing some haunches-in at the canter, as I said above, to both find the Xs and to help to increase the collection. 

Welcome back, neck muscles, it's been a while

So that's our focus for right now. Try to fix our aid system. Try to fix the connection. Start rebuilding strength in the collection. I also need to get myself together with my biomechanics as well because that is going downhill quickly without mirrors or help. 

We'll figure out a training situation soon enough. But I'm really happy with the work we are doing now. He's a totally different horse since we moved and took a break from instruction. So we'll run with this until I figure out what to do next. 

Today he sees the chirovet because he had some weird clicking in his jaw while eating last week that I wanted her to look at. I also want to talk to her about what my vet found in Feb. Hopefully we can help him balance out his hind end a bit more. And I'll be curious to hear what she thinks of him now that he's put on a bit more muscle and is actually going properly! 

Uphill

Friday of last week was our first day back working specifically on the flying changes. We haven't schooled them regularly since August and while they've definitely been better, he's doing them consistently clean and on my aids, so great! And what is true now about them that has been true in the past though is that they remain croup high. 

Basically in a flying change, you want the front and hind end to be at least level, if not have the front end above the hind end. But a lot of horses, mine included, changes with his ass in the air, pulling himself into the new lead with his front end. Honestly, most horses get them put on like this so it wasn't a big deal to me that my somewhat on-the-forehand horse changed... on the forehand. Even Rico's changes got downhill sometimes in the beginning. 

But in looking forward toward Fourth level and above, I know that I want the tempi changes to be a highlight (and also, you know, possible), so this year, because we're sitting at Third level for most of it, I want to make sure that his single flying changes are perfect. And that means teaching him to sit down in them and stay uphill. 

Probably the last screenshots for a while

The fact that we can now set up for a change and then I can tell him "no, not like that" and have him give me a relaxed, obedient change after that is really good news. A lot of the time, changes aren't particularly relaxed, so making changes to the way they are done is HARD. I'm battling that with a client's horse right now and it's tough. But TC is so agreeable that I tell him "not like that" and he goes "okay I'll try!" because that's his answer to everything ever. 

I started by doing them on the diagonal and sitting in a way that would suggest a school canter, but pushing him forward into a collected canter. This allowed me to really weight the back edge of my seat bones in the moment that his haunches were the most lowered (and when he should be striking off on the new lead). 

He knows on the diagonal that I might ask him to change, so he propped his butt up against me and we did a ten meter circle until he'd go across the diagonal without a butt prop. Then I asked for the change and got a butt prop so he got a ten meter circle. And then finally I got a truly uphill flying change and it was downright magical. 

No butt props, TC!

There are times where my funny horse, who makes me want to pull my hair out in some ways, just casually sits down and gives me things that feel just as good, if not better, than Rico. And that change was one of those times! I made a big deal out of him to inspire him to continue to do the thing in that way and he DID. 

He still needed some reminders when he'd prop up against me, but after a while, more changes than not were uphill and balanced properly. We didn't do a huge number of them, just a few each way, but I felt very good about keeping this on our to do list once a week for a while until they were balanced all the time. 

From that change, it feels like everything through the 2s would be possible. I'm still getting a little dislodged in them but that's on me, not him. Once I get my shit together and these changes are his regular changes, we'll get to play with the tempi changes! He's done fours before but it was not an easy feat for him, it took a lot of organization and timing on my part. 

What I tell the SO when he has to deal with my
"disgrace" of a car lol 

I want his tempis to be like Rico's, easy to ride with not too much thinking required. It really matters in the upper levels to have some "gimme" movements where you don't have to use your brain. Using your brain for an entire FEI test is impossible. With Rico, the zig zag and the changes were always a time where I could turn my brain off and relax for a second. I want at least the tempis to be a time where I can relax on this horse! 

Semi-Conductor

Last Thursday, I had another lesson! I’m really loving all these lessons, I feel like I’ve nearly figured out why things have been so iffy this year.

First, Tanya helped me out with the Pixem. I believe I have it working well enough to take a remote lesson *when* I figure out how to get audio to me while I’m on the horse. Bluetooth headphones decided not to work, so I need to figure out something else. In the mean time, my SO has agreed to be my ground crew for any technical difficulties and he'll let me use his phone for the audio. So thanks to him and to Tanya for helping me out!

Screenshots from my lesson! 

When we got started, I told Tanya that I’d changed three things since our last lesson: TC got his saddle reflocked, he got his bit changed, and I started him on LMF Gold. She liked these changes, saying that he was much more forward than he had been and approved the bit. So we’ll potentially be buying a NS turtle top soon.

I talked to her a bunch about the conductor theory, that I just hoist him along too much at home and that I’m trying to fix that. She barely had to tell me to get him in front of my leg, having to actually tell me to slow down and rebalance a few times! At one point she had me really half halt him in trot and he sat right down and gave me that fancy floaty trot, which she got really excited about.

We played in canter with the half passes and we still have a significant weakness in the left one. She prescribed us leg yields in canter (from outside leg to inside rein, not the “normal” kind that she had us do several years ago) and haunches-in down the long side. I’ve been doing haunches-in on a circle, but that’s not cutting it anymore.

This is where she wants him to be so that he puts on more
muscle, I'm not unhappy with how he's looking here even if that
damn friesian neck btv-ness will haunt me forever

We also started riding the half passes all the way across the long diagonal to make sure TC was at that level of commitment to the sideways so that approaching centerline, he wasn’t too excited about stopping. Then we held the counter canter and discovered that his changes are STILL hit or miss.

It’s gotten to the point where I just barely school them. I need to get over it, but they just don’t feel good sometimes and I’m paranoid about ruining them. Tanya had us do them and then pointed out that TC doesn’t stay on the bit during them. Yeah, I know that, but apparently this is now the reason why they are so hit or miss! I was being lax about it thinking that he needed to get a little hollow to make them work (typical in training) but really, he can’t jump through them as effectively. So once I kept him rounder, he was much much much better in them. I was really excited about that!

We finished with some trot work. The shoulder-in is pretty spectacular these days, so we focused more on the half passes. Again, he needed to have more activity in his right hind in the left half pass, so she had me really press him for that. He gave me a really really good one by the end and we let him end on that.

Collected and engaged, hallelujah! 

I was really excited about the lesson, mostly because it didn’t feel nearly as far off as what I’ve been doing at home. The more I insist on being the conductor, the better TC goes.

Tanya and I chatted about TC’s remaining issues and she wanted me to order him a new muscle builder. She said that he just doesn’t have the muscle tone that she’d expect of a horse at this level BUT that he’s half friesian and will take longer to put on muscle than normal horses. She said under no circumstances does she want me to back off or not ride him as much, that’s obviously not what is going to put on muscle.

I ordered the muscle supplement and will try it for a month. If I think it works, I’ll pull him off his normal one and just leave him on this one. If it doesn’t work, oh well! It was worth a shot. Also next on my list is to get the vet out to do his teeth, it’s a bit early but may as well. And I’ll have her draw blood and do a blood panel while she’s at it. I’m thinking he might be a little low in vitamin E or he might be slightly anemic if anything. May as well try it out. I’m thinking that we’re about to begin schooling the FEI level work and I have the time/money right now to figure out what he may need to help him out there.