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. 

The Return of Counter Canter

I'm really pleased with how TC is looking and feeling these days. He's finally getting to a place where I can really ride him in the more collected paces and have it feel somewhat easy for him. I think this is due to how much spinal integrity he's starting to maintain on his own. He's really learning to hold himself more together instead of relying on finding the outside edges of my aids and ping ponging off of those. 

Because of this, we've started to scratch the surface of moving back toward Second level! In our last lesson, we found a hole in the spinal integrity as he headed into canter, so I figured that I'd challenge him with some counter canter. 

For some reason I only clipped from left lead canter,
it was due to a time constraint, his right lead is better

It was really interesting. I went right first, so his harder lead but his easier direction, and it felt really weak. Like I could not ride it without feeling like I had to chase him a bit. That's fine, but nowhere near where I want it to be. 

The other direction though, well, I've never ridden a better counter canter. It felt unbelievably rideable, super uphill, and just downright easy for him! So that was fascinating. His left lead has always been the weaker one, but this is definitely a little more than usual. But I figure I'll give him a month or two of schooling some counter canter a couple days a week before I start using it as any sort of a diagnostic tool. He could also just be rather uncoordinated. 

I love trail rides on this horse

Beyond that, we also looked at some lengthened and shortened trot. TC has always had a lot of "pushing" power, but most of that power was actually just pulling power with his hind legs out behind him. We've been working hard on the carrying power, engaging his hind legs and lightening the forehand. But I also do need to access the *actual* pushing power rather than him always defaulting to pulling. 

I figure the best way to do this is to put him in his place of carrying, then ask him for a bigger gait, then put him back in his carrying place. It's a lot easier to go back to carrying if you don't completely change from rear wheel drive to front wheel drive. 

This was *very* hard for... me. I want to feel a big surge heading into a lengthening and that surge is only available by him pulling right now. So it was good for me to have to maintain a semblance of carrying in the lengthened trot. 

Best gray horse

But then that lead to some hovering on his part. Another thing that my body automatically rewards because it feels like passage. A hovering trot does not a passage make. A passage has both carrying and pushing power. The hovering is created by him just pulling himself with his neck and front feet and bouncing the hind legs along to create what feels like more suspension but what is actually a large heap of garbage. But like most people, it feels like passage so therefore I get a stupid grin on my face like wheee he's so bouncy and fancy. 

I've been there before though, so I've been working to let him know thank you, but I will not be requiring childlike joy from a hovering trot. I will ask you for more suspension later when you have the strength to do it properly. He's fine with that, just wanted to offer a shitty passage-like trot if I would like to have it. 

We have five baby cows by the way!
More in another post hopefully

All in all, it feels REALLY good to not have the harder work lead to him completely dropping through his thoracic sling and looking terrible again. His body is looking pretty good, not the way I want it to, but we're also struggling with how much food they're getting in pasture, so I think he was being a little underfed. He's getting more calories now so hopefully that helps us out in the topline department. 

He still looks way better than he did before, but now I've gotten greedy. My main goal though is for him to continue looking better. I don't mind if it takes a little while, but if he starts actually LOSING topline, that's when I need to stop and reevaluate. We aren't there yet, but I think this level of work and having enough to maintain weight but maybe not put on muscle (maybe? it's so hard to know when they're on pasture) can explain why he might be plateauing the tiniest bit. 

Applying the Fire Hose of Information

I returned late Sunday night from the L program. I was not in a good place physically, and honestly not all that good mentally either. What I thought might be allergies all weekend turned into a full on unpleasant cold at the PHX airport as I waited for my late flight to take off. As I flew my ears started to hurt and I was so miserable the rest of the night. 

I worked from home on Monday to save my coworkers from my illness and so I got to ride TC for a normal amount of time. I did feel better that day and at this point, I just have a lingering cough. 

Absolutely bursting from knowledge over the weekend, I actually did manage to have a good ride without completely flinging myself off our pathway. I rode in the covered arena and there were things that I really liked and things that I realized were going on that I hadn't noticed before. 

Best pony

New realizations:

TC doesn't want to connect to the left rein, but I think he is connected because I pull on it so much. I started to really notice when he was connected vs when I was just filling in the gap in the connection by taking back on the rein.  

TC's lazy leg isn't his left hind, it's his right hind. It doesn't want to push as much and so it pops off the ground early. At the program, the instructor REALLY emphasized the need for two even hind legs (crookedness is apparent in all movements, so I'm basically giving away a point per movement, that's 10%!). I've known that TC has that unevenness in his pushing, but this is where it really needs to start going away. 

LOOK AT THIS CAT, he's so cute

All the tiny little bobbles need to go away. It makes a huge difference in each movement AND in the collectives if TC doesn't need bits of communication like a slight wiggle of my inside ring finger or a poke with the spur to keep him on the left rein. A 9 is attainable even for horses who are 7 movers, we just insist on riding too much to earn them. 

Along with that last note, I began to notice all the weird shit I do to keep things together in the harder movements. We are not showing ease of movements in the simple changes or the counter canter. He labors a bit and I move my body around to accommodate him. It's not ideal and I need to continue to build his strength. IMO we're coming into this show with very weak canter work. I'm not expecting more than a 6 on either of those movements. We are weak at this level. I'm choosing to go anyway, and it's not like I'm beating him on a regular basis to get the movements out of him, but this is borderline unfair to him and he's going to get himself a lot of sugar and maybe a trail ride or two next weekend. 

Early morning ride before I left for the program

Tuesday I also got a good ride in and I chose to test ride again. Again, I don't normally test ride this much coming into a show but I really don't know how things are going to go and it's making me nervous. Plus, I haven't had a clean 2-3 yet. 

This time we had a beautiful 2-1! His canter medium was stellar, trot medium was on point, shoulder-in felt free and steady, halt was a bit too close to the rail so hitting it disrupted the rhythm but whatevs, the transitions were all so good, the ten meter circle is easy and fun. My main complaint was that he's anticipating a lot in the walk work and ruining his beautiful walk. So we're going to walk on contact a ton this week. 

We got through the trot tour at 2-3 and through the walk work and I did the stupid thing of thinking "is this going to be our first clean 2-3?" and then he BOLTED down the long side in the canter medium. He just gets so excited about them. 

He got in trouble but we kept going, had a good serpentine and simple change, then bolted in the second serpentine and then bolted coming up centerline. Fun! It was mostly because they were working with a tractor near the arena, so I get it, but still frustrating. 

Pls don't bolt in the medium canter thx

I took him into the covered and checked on the walk pirouettes. They feel slow and sticky but they're solid. I just can't feel his hind legs, remember? So I just have to trust that they're fine and not override them like an idiot. 

Then we cantered a bit and did a ton of counter canter. I don't like over schooling it because of Third level, but I really want this to go well. He was a good boy about it. A few solid simple changes later and we walked a bunch on contact to get him to stop anticipating. Then we were done! 

Generally I love how he's feeling. I'm able to ride the canter in a way I've never experienced on him (at least, not consistently) before. His trot is active and rideable as well. I think Tracey is really onto something and I can't wait to see her after this show and throw everything I've got into transforming his gaits.

Feather-Induced Test-Ruining Leaping

I signed up for the show at the end of this month. I was feeling kind of questionable about it but decided to just do it. I should have tried harder to get into the same show a year ago and show these tests, there's no reason to wait any longer. They just aren't going to ride any better.

Well, they could ride a bit better. We test rode this past weekend and it was fine. It was fine. I mean, we would have been eliminated from the 2-3, which sucks because I honestly think that might be our better test.

Still got time for wandering

The 2-1 rode fine, there's really not much to it. The mediums are on the shorter diagonal, the canter mediums are only 3/4 of the way down the long side, there's no walk pirouettes or canter to walk transitions, and it's just shoulder-in. But at the same time, some of the elements still were tricky, mostly because there aren't a ton of movements to make up for some of our weak stuff. His walk to canter transition just isn't as through as it needs to be, and because we've schooled the simple changes enough, he thinks about doing them during the counter canter pattern.

But generally I was really happy with the test, being a bit easy isn't a problem, but I do believe a clean 2-1 will result in a lower score than a clean 2-3. Not that my horse is a clean-test kind of horse.

The 2-3 is a much better test for us when things go well... His counter canter loop is excellent unless he gets off balance on the right lead and goes to swap in front. I can hold it but it feels slightly precarious at times. Whatever. A fully confirmed counter canter before flying changes can get you stuck at Second level indefinitely. The walk pirouettes ride beautifully, there's something about this horse and that movement, he really has good instincts with them and I can really fuck that movement right up and he just does it. Good boy, earning your keep.

The haunches-in is... well, it exists. He slows down a bit in it and shuffles to get the right amount of angle, but it's fine. The shoulder-in to ten meter circle rides quite well so I'm not too fussed about a weak haunches-in. I feel like Second level is the level where you're just kind of low key bad at everything.

Simple changes feel great, going away from the judge is preferable, although she'll be able to see him get wide behind. Rico didn't have clean simple changes until like... Fourth level. TC's are clean, they just sometimes feel like I'm riding a bag of rocks down a hill.

Sunrise driving to the barn before teaching and working and
teaching some more

Now, the place where we would have gotten eliminated in the 2-3 was OBVIOUSLY the medium canter on the left lead. He exploded a few times in our test riding, which is fine, it's just him. But he saw a feather when we just started the medium canter and then he leapt sideways, landed with the court in between his left and right pairs of legs, then leapt again and we were outside the court.

Ugh. Horse. Seriously. Please keep your fingers crossed for a low-wind day, not that he's afraid of wind, it's that he likes to play with things floating around in the wind.

So we'll see how THAT goes. It's not a big deal to get eliminated, really, I just want to get in the show ring. Ideally we'll like, end our test inside the court with a halt and a salute rather than by jumping out of the ring, but unfortunately this is just who TC is at times. He really has no respect for that tiny fence around the arena (non-horsey SO thought I was weird to be nervous that he'd jump out of the arena "is that really a concern?" I forgot to explain that I'm not worried about him jumping out of the actual arena, just the court).

Remember this bullshit?

But other than that, we're feeling as ready as we can be given that 1) I've been working VERY hard this fall and have been a whiny bitch about it for weeks to the point where it's a miracle if my friends or family don't murder me before the show, 2) I haven't been able to ride TC nearly as long or as much as I would like coming into our first show of the year, and 3) TC is clearly a show jumper who missed his calling and I'm making a bad decision trying to contain his enthusiasm in a tiny sandbox.

I want to test ride a bit more and we have our last lesson with Tracey this weekend (unless it's another shit show lesson and then I'll take a day off work to get one before the show). Then it's just a weekend off of riding for me to start the L program and the following weekend is the show! I am genuinely excited for it, I want to braid him (using Peony's Spot On Braiding Wax, of course!), get all dressed up, brush that damn tail out, and hear how pretty his color is from strangers. It will be fun and I'm managing my expectations score-wise to keep it fun even if we don't get the scores I've been hoping for.

Progress with the Counter Canter

TC and I had a great couple of rides last week working on some Second level work. We're now about six weeks out from the last show of the season and I'd really like to feel ready to sign up for it. 

Looking at some garbage cans across the road

On Wednesday morning I was sitting super weird. I rode TC and noticed it, and Wednesday mornings I also ride a *very* sensitive client horse so I quickly shifted my focus and did a more stretchy ride while working on my biomechanics. It was a good ride, just not much to write home about, but worth mentioning lest you think that all of my rides are working on things other than getting myself to sit on my right seat bone. 

Thursday was when we really looked at the Second level stuff, which is coming along. 

I'm taking advantage of having a court (and having the guys ALWAYS watering/dragging the covered with mirrors when I want to ride) to practice movements and geometry (lol one of my kids told me she hadn't taken geometry yet when I told her that her circles were absurd, nice comeback). This day, I tackled the counter canter. 

No covered arena riding for us in the mornings,
oh well :( 

The 2-1 counter canter is super easy, it's the same as it used to be (across the short diagonal from the corner, then hold it down the long side and transition at the corner letter) BUT it now is a trot transition rather than a walk transition. No complaints, I think it makes the test way easier than 1-3, which is good because Second has been such a big jump in the past. 

The biggest challenge was not botching the canter to trot transition. Those are rough on TC generally for some reason and I have yet to smooth it out. It's really dumb, we'll fix it, nothing like a Second level pattern to point out your Training level issues. 

Other than that though, the pattern rode really well, although I immediately reverted to weird left hand behavior on the right lead, so I'm going to go into my lesson tomorrow with that request. 

Still thinking about how pretty it was on that trail ride last
weekend

I didn't want to look up the 2-3 pattern but I was 99% sure that it was the three loop serpentine with no simple changes. Either way, a good movement to ride to solidify his counter canter work. And it turns out, I was right.

The first time I rode it, TC saw a bird shadow and all was lost. Sigh. I thought he'd be over them by now but I guess not (earlier in the ride he pounced on a leaf and I laughed at him so we're not the epitome of maturity over here, let's just be clear). After that, it felt really good! Solid enough where I don't think we're in danger of breaking and precarious enough where I don't think I'm too screwed when I go to put changes on him. 

Best gray nose

We schooled some of the trot work after that (and after he tried to lawn dart me because he was super amped) and that all felt great too. His shoulder-in feels way easier and his medium trot is terrifying getting bigger. 

The medium is tricky though, because if I ride it at 80% (which is what I tell my riders to do for development - never ride at 100% of what your horse can do because they're not going to develop properly, it's like lifting your 1RM deadlift all the time and wondering why your back hurts), I still lose his hind legs. I almost have to school it at 50-60% of what he's truly capable of to get the quality (uphill tendency and hind leg activity) that I want. The more he goes (and man can he go), the more he unloads the hind legs. 

I don't like schooling it a ton because I think it's not great for their legs and it's only two movements in the test (worth as much as ONE walk pirouette), but it is worth it to get a good one on him. 

Now I'm just reaching back into the archive, I really need to
take advantage of having a phone with unlimited photo storage

Generally I am super happy with where the movements are currently. I think right now there's no major weak points in that we wouldn't be able to get through the test. I do want the simple changes to be more clear and through, and honestly just easier. I feel like I can get them clean in the test, but they'll be clunky because he isn't stepping under. Granted, they're only on the short diagonal and only in the 2-3, but still. Bleh. 

I also want to get the haunches-in more solid for the 2-3 pattern. I haven't schooled it much and I keep schooling shoulder-in instead of haunches-in and I need to stop defaulting to that movement. So that's on my list too. 

Other than that and the mediums (which I have to be careful about going for in the show ring because he's such a dingbat, I doubt I'll trust him in the extended canter for another couple of years), I feel pretty good! Everything should be solidly 7s except some of the canter work and the mediums, and those should be made up for by the 8s I'm hoping to get on the walk pirouettes... although I could ruin them before then. 

Getting ready to erase some of this stuff that I
think has been there for months... 

Fingers crossed I leave my lesson tomorrow with some good homework (I know we will) and more confidence about this show. I'm still feeling like showing 2-3 is incredibly daunting. That's one test below Third level and we're really not schooling a ton of Third level just yet. This winter we sure will since it might be lead change time, but for right now, we're very much going to be showing at the level we're schooling, yikes.

That Struggle Bus Life

I had a couple of decent rides after my lesson. Not great rides, but decent ones.

My main goal has been to, of course, address the issues that arose in my lesson. I am finding it tricky to maintain TC's connection with all the changes in my hand position. As much as my new position is more correct than my previous one, TC is used to the previous one.

Struggle bus for me at the trot

So with higher hands means he's not coming up and over through his topline and reaching for the contact as much as he's dropping his wither and reaching upward to meet me. So I think I need to break out the clicker for this. Also maybe a long lining day where I put the lines up a little higher, help him understand how to respond to the bit on a different part of his mouth.

I got a bit frustrated feeling like I was just pulling him off the bit, but we persevered and it's honestly not as bad as it feels.

The canter feels great though, it feels better at home than it does at ASH, while the trot feels better at ASH than at home. So that's interesting. While the canter is really hard for both of us, I do feel like we're making major progress in it. He's moving so much better!

Ugh dressage is hard

I bit the bullet and rode some counter canter and did a couple of changes yesterday. The counter canter felt spectacular tracking right and decent tracking left. I can really feel how crucial this movement is going to be for his development. I want to get my eyes on it to see whether it looks like it feels (aka am I losing the split in the hind legs or the jump? Can't stop won't stop being obsessed with gait quality).

The changes are a hot mess, but we do have one from right to left. He still wants to be VERY croup high though, so I think that we're on the path of schooling the counter canter into oblivion and risking the change being difficult, rather than getting a change on now and then schooling the counter canter. Sucks because I love changes and didn't want to risk not being able to put them on if he thinks that he should only do counter canter. I think that won't be a big deal because 1) he's had a good introduction to them in that he knows they're a thing, 2) I pretty much school counter canter from a simple change on the rail vs going across the diagonal so he knows that difference, and 3) he's a boingy POS anyway so as long as I don't destroy his moment of suspension, he should be fully enthused to start them later.

He lost a bunch of weight in like... a week and a half, it was
really frustrating, he's getting fed more now but his butt is
all pointy still. 

We also have been schooling shoulder-in for days. I can feel him want to surge in it quite a lot, and I think that's him wanting to unload his hind legs. I carried a whip yesterday (keep forgetting mine in my trailer so I haven't been riding with it recently) and touched him lightly on the butt during the shoulder-in, that seemed to help him not push out toooo much behind.

It does feel like it has too much angle right now... I figure I'm going to ignore that for a bit, wait until I get in front of the mirrors. For now, anything sideways is probably helpful.

Also video is SO tough in this arena

Speaking of mirrors, I'm super ready to move barns. It's hard to ride on a daily basis in a small arena (it's 20m x 45m, so slightly longer than a short court) on a large horse. Sometimes you just need to go in a straight line for longer than 45 meters to get something done. I love being at that barn so much and it's been so much better than the barn we came from for a multitude of reasons, but I want mirrors, an outdoor to use my soloshot in, and larger spaces to ride. Still, I feel bad being excited to leave, I think TC would like to stay forever.

I finally measured his current paddock, it's over 100 feet long and 50 feet wide. I am so sad for him to leave it because he loves it so much. Sorry bud, I could move to the central valley and have all the land in the world to play in, but I wouldn't be able to do my job out there. Unfortunately you're not the one paying the bills so it's up to me where you live. I am glad that he's staying in it while I'm in Michigan. I think I'll reach out to this barn in the future when I have to leave for any longer period of time too. He'll be fine in a smaller space and will eventually be given a large paddock.

Shifting Perspective

On Monday I had a lesson at my barn! I had asked the organizer if there was a way that we could get my trainer to come to my barn because TC could be a bit different there than at other places. Tanya doesn't mind coming to a barn for one person but she does mind going to all the barns in the area. So this time she taught everyone at a barn nearby, then came to do me last at my barn.

Obviously TC was the exact same as he's been, so I didn't get any of the weird wiggly behind-the-leg-ness that was going on when I requested that she come to my barn. BUT it was really nice to not have to haul anywhere. I got so much done that night!

Pictures from my first ever lesson with Tanya just because I
didn't have my shit together for this post

I started out telling Tanya that I'd schooled the Second level tests recently and that while they were definitely harder than First, they were surprisingly doable. The only major issue was the counter canter. I told her I understood why people skipped Second and went straight to Third once as you don't need the scores and she was VERY against that. I also am quite against it (and then had to defend myself a bit lol I was like I AM NOT SKIPPING IT DON'T WORRY), but it was interesting to hear her perspective.

She said that because the Third level tests are so flow-y, they ride super easily and allow you to not have to make as quick of decisions/be as effective of a rider. The Second level tests are much harder, so they're important to get good at if you want to make it to the higher levels. I definitely want to do the level, I want to be good at it. I want to lay this foundation down so solidly that he skips through all the hard stuff at the upper levels. Er, at least doesn't get stuck anywhere.

I think this was the moment where I realized he wasn't just a
backyard bred pasture pony anymore

Once in our warm up, we started with some big figures while working on my posting mechanic before doing some leg yields. I didn't really realize how much the leg yield would help us in the warm up, I almost never put it there just because, as I'll explain later, my main problem is still thinking of TC as a First level horse.

From there we looked at the canter, which looked good. Tanya wanted me to do a little more forward and back in warm up, as in both trot and canter I tend to focus on too much forward. The collection in the canter has been a little iffy recently only because of my Rico baggage- I have a long history of being encouraged by trainers to ride the pirouette canter behind the leg. So while TC is learning to do it correctly, my tendency is to still ride it more earthbound than Tanya wants it to be.

My main goal with this horse is to set him up super well for each level so that nothing comes as a giant surprise. This is a big step to getting the pirouettes to be easy. Tanya said that once we have the pirouette canter on the spot and in front of my leg, the turning part of it is the easy part.

Back when I was riding him so low in front

We looked at the shoulder-in and haunches-in. For the shoulder-in right, it needs a little less bend, which is funny because a few months ago it needed less angle. The shoulder-in left is perfect. The haunches-in is actually quite good now, I just need to settle it, which means to stop asking for a bigger trot within it. It's been so hard for him that I'm used to hustling him through it, now I just need to sit back and let him do it.

The half passes feel GREAT! I've been mostly working on haunches-in lately and really focusing on getting my mechanic correct - pushing him into the outside rein with my inside leg and having the outside rein be what guides the angle vs the outside leg. That's the same issue I have in half pass, and so the half passes were just brilliant.

The left one is better than the right, as he leaves his left hind a bit out behind him when going right. Once as I tapped the left hind under him though, damn. This horse is going to NAIL the half pass when we get to Third.

He's so much more of a grown up now and this was just in May!

Back in canter, we rode a bunch of counter canter. Tanya wanted me really focusing on riding his shoulders on the line, then pushing his haunches slightly outside the line. I could feel that the quality of the canter was lacking, but we agreed that it was just that TC wasn't yet confident enough in the counter canter. It feels more fragile than I want it to be. Though I do want to keep in mind what Tanya said at my last lesson - we don't want him so confident in it that it's hard to get a change on him.

The simple changes rode okay... I know that the better the collected canter is, the better they will ride (I got the canter on POINT this morning and the downward out of it was perfect). Tanya also wanted me to be quicker in the change - less walk steps. That's fine but it takes a second to change the bend, so speeding up the changes meant less actual changing and more just picking up the same lead. So that's a project too.

We hopped back into trot for some work in the medium trot. This shit is HARD. I'll probably dedicate an entire post to it at some point. Tanya's main critique is that he leaves his hind legs out behind him a bit too much, so we're to do a ton of quick transitions between medium trot and collected trot. My poor abs.

She had me bring him so up in this first lesson, but this is now
his warm up canter

We ended with some trot to halt transitions and that was a bit rough. There's something about this horse where this movement is so damn hard. It's always been hard for him. We experimented a bunch with changing my aids to get him to halt properly and finally Tanya seemed slightly exasperated and said the words "pull him off the bit" and I was like um okay. So I popped him up off the bit. Then halted from my seat and it was the best one yet. I think the main issue is that he dives/curls in the transition, which gets him to slam his front feet down rather than sit down behind. So we'll... try riding less on the bit I guess.

Afterward we talked about showing this fall and I realized that much of my hesitation with showing is just not seeing TC as a Second level horse. It seems so recent that we were trying to get his gaits good enough for First... so recent that the leg yield zig zag was hard vs something we now score 8s on. I know I'm putting in the time to train the horse, but I kind of expected to go through more of a slog with the Second level stuff. It almost feels too easy to have arrived at a place where we're ready to show at Second. I keep waiting to hit a huge wall and we just aren't.

I did tell Tanya that I wanted to see how the schooling show went and how much I could teach between now and when entries were due for the rated show. I really would like to show this fall, but I know that if we wait until spring, our scores will be better and I will have more money. Still, I do want to get it in my head that TC is a Second Level Horse (TM) so that I can keep my mentality on track to pushing for a solid year next year at Second and hopefully a debut at Third. TC the Third Level Horse makes even less sense to me. He's still such a huge dork.

Test Riding at Second Level

Thursday morning I saw that the covered arena had been cleared of jumps/cavallettis and had also been watered and dragged! So that meant one thing: test riding.

We tentatively have a schooling show in early October where I'd ideally like to ride 2-1 and 2-2 to see how they go. We've never ridden 2-2, and my attempts at 2-1 happened last year when he was just baaaarely able to do the test. It was like trying to ride a Fourth level test now except that I couldn't even stuff him through those because he doesn't have half the movements at that level yet.

Random soloshot pictures because I don't have anything current

Anyway, I figured that I should test ride it before I decide to show. So between yesterday and today, we rode all of the Second level tests. Here's a quick rundown of how each went:

Second 1: totally clean except that at the end of the test he exploded for no reason. Cool.
Second 2: totally clean except he thought that he'd do a lead change in the first counter canter, oops.
Second 3: again totally clean except in the first counter canter pattern he broke.

Overall I was super pleased with how easy the tests felt! We definitely have some homework, which I thought would be more interesting to talk about than to run through each test. Here are some of the things I want to really fix up before we have to do this in a show:

The best pony

Sitting the Medium Trot

This horse has a hell of a trot in general, and once you put it over the ground it becomes even more impossible to sit. What I noticed is that while I sit the medium trot just fine even on the long diagonal, I get tired enough where I tend to shut the trot down as we slow down and then it's hard to put him back up in the lateral work.

So I think I need to sit the mediums a lot more (this is news to no one) and focus on how I'm handling things afterward. The medium trot can be used to develop a much better, more cadenced trot, and I should be utilizing it a bit better so that we can come into our lateral work stronger.

I also realized that they set up 2-1 and 2-2 so that you don't have to do that much trot work all at once, but that 2-3 has all your trot work front loaded. I never considered it until I was facing my second medium trot in 2-3 and was like you know, I'm fucking tired.


Counter Canter

Obviously all of our mistakes came in counter canter, so we need to work on that the most. There area  few things going on. TC knows his counter canter, but hasn't been asked to do it in as small of a space.

TC is still learning to stay really up and in front of my leg in the collected canter, so add the counter canter to that and it's really tough. I feel like his canter shuts down a bit in the counter canter still.

The plan is to continue to school the smaller patterns in the dressage court (or in a manufactured one, I think I am going to measure out the big arena) and then also to ride larger counter canter patterns in the big arena focusing on the quality of the canter. Hopefully the two will collide and I'll be able to maintain the quality of the canter on the smaller figures.

This was from before Tanya had me bring him up

Simple Changes

The simple changes are foot perfect when I'm practicing them, but like everything, they get worse in a test environment. This is because I'll go to put him in the very collected canter and he'll get a bit slow, or he'll prop a bit, or he'll lose depth of his inside hind, and when I'm just in practice, I will push him out of it and try again. In a test I just walk from there. The transitions are clean, but that's not what an 8 simple change feels like!

The upwards are fine, but he needs confidence, he only feels confident in the upwards if I kiss at the same time as asking, so I'm going to be doing a lot more of those.


Turns on the Haunches

These are pretty damn good but I'm struggling a little bit to ride them as turns on the haunches vs walk pirouettes. Meaning I have not a lot of control over the size of them. I think my goal over the next few weeks is going to be to just put a damn good walk pirouette on him and forget about it.

Yep too downhill here

Overall I'm super pleased with how the tests rode! I don't think that it's so far out of our wheelhouse to think that we'd be okay at this schooling show. I think we're good to go for 2-1 and 2-2 in a couple of weeks and then we miiiight go to a rated show at the end of October and do 1-3 and 2-1. I don't think I want to risk too much counter canter in the rated ring just yet.

Re-installation

Thursday morning I decided that I was going to tackle the haunches-in with TC. It's kind of like Second Level Week over here as I poke all the buttons and see what needs polishing for the show ring over the next two to eight months between now and our Second level debut.

Also on the agenda: clicker training square halts!

TC has been schooling haunches-in for a while now, but it's always been really hard for him. It's not my favorite movement, so I also probably have been slacking on it lately.

Haunches-in can be a bit tricky in that it's super easy to do wrong and think that you're doing it right. Like the shoulder-in being more like haunches-out, the haunches-in can be more like shoulder-out. Both of those are wrong. The key is to look at the outside front leg, it should track forward rather than step outward as the horse transitions from the straight line to the haunches-in.

The big key of haunches-in and half pass is to keep the horse's weight on the outside of their body, into the outside rein. Many riders open their outside rein to let the shoulders fall out, shove the horse over with the outside leg, and hold the horse up in bend with the inside rein. That's cool. But don't do that.

The haunches-in (lateral) part of the haunches-in should always come from the half halt on the outside rein, not the outside leg. The outside leg isn't even supposed to be very far back, which comes back to bite you HARD in the zig zag at the upper levels. The inside rein should be softly connected, and the inside leg should be on and pushing the horse into the outside rein.

At one point getting this horse to go into any rein was hard!

This historically has been HARD for me to get because so many horses are trained wrong, I've had a lot of practice doing it wrong. So it has been my goal to make TC's haunches-in very correct so that I don't keep on this perpetual loop of shitty haunches-in and half pass.

I started out in trot just seeing what it was like and sure enough, TC's tendency is already to fall out with his shoulder instead of really bringing the haunches around my inside leg. I set him up again and failed again. And again we did it and I started to realize that he REALLY doesn't want to go to the outside rein (in either direction).

So we went into shoulder-in and fixed that right up. From the shoulder-in, I transitioned straight for 2-3 steps and asked again and voila! Really amazing haunches-in! Until I he faltered and I shoved my outside leg back to fix it instead of using my half halt on my outside rein... yeah.

He's so cute

I decided to ride the movement in canter as well. Like I said in yesterday's post, my goal for the end of the year is to start laying down the foundation for Third and Fourth level. And one of those movements I think will delay us is the canter pirouettes. TC is no where NEAR ready to school them, but he can start to do shoulder-in and haunches-in on the circle, which is one of my favorite baby pirouette exercises. Basically, let me shove you around at the canter.

TC took to the haunches-in on the canter SUPER well. I think part of it is that while I've had a lot of practice riding shit haunches-in and half pass, I honestly am pretty decent at riding the pirouettes. This is just because I've only really ridden pirouettes with good trainers, vs the trainer who taught me the lower level stuff was kind of terrible at teaching them.

He wanted to slow down, and normally I'd be okay with that, but sure enough the moment he slowed down, I lost the inside hind leg as we went by the jump he kicked down last week and he went careening off trying to kick it down again. He missed. So he's not ready for pirouette canter or anything. But we're good to get him moving laterally at the canter.

From there, we looked at the counter canter and I had a realization again. Once again, I've ridden a lot of shit counter canter, so of course I lost my bear down and my slingshot as I transitioned into it. Interesting. So I forced myself to get hunkered down into it and what do you know... the quality of the canter got MUCH better. Huh. Probably totally unrelated!

Case in point my seat gets worse in counter canter

Generally TC has been feeling really great. I'm still so happy with the show. I looked it up and this is also MY highest score ever too! And to come home and have really great schools at Second makes me feel really good. We have a long way to go but I think we can get there without toooo many bumps in the road!

This weekend should be a fun one! I'll have a fun update when I get back from the bay.

Glancing Upwards

We left off yesterday with a good warm up and then some walk pirouettes, today I'll go over the second half of the lesson, which was a bunch of Second level stuff! Again it's riddled with gifs, blame Peony for letting me borrow her Pixio, I'm obsessed! 

Also obsessed with this trot, we're on our way to having a fancy
shoulder!

Back in trot, we did a few circles of sitting trot, working on getting my fatigued triceps and lats to turn on and get my elbows by my sides (we had minimal success there, I was so sore!). Then, we started in shoulder-in, and pretty immediately, Tanya was really pushing us in it. For a while it's been like "do a shoulder-in" and we've made minor adjustments, but it was like she came out this lesson and decided that rather than a First level horse schooling some Second level, TC was a Second level horse schooling some Third. There was a moment where I thought she was going to have us do a change he was set up so well!

To the left, the shoulder-in didn't have enough angle, so Tanya wanted me to use my inside leg to really get him to drop his inside hip and bring the left hind under and feel the connection to my right rein. I was not coordinated enough to get this at first, but then figured it out and the shoulder-in flowed a lot better after that!

Shoulder-in left, which was feeling really good! Though I am
glad that we're still a good eight months away from Second...

To the right, the shoulder-in had too much angle and bend (yay I guess? I've been working on getting him to lift his ribcage that way, maybe too much now) so I was to keep my outside leg back to hold the angle, and then straighten him on the outside rein. It all rode super nicely after that and he was keeping his trot in it very well. I have always kind of been taught that it's okay to slow a horse down in the lateral work and Tanya is NOT about that, she almost wants the lateral work bigger than the regular trot (or so it seems).

Shoulder-in right, which is a bit weaker generally

While changing directions each way, Tanya had us do a half pass. I have been occasionally working on half passes with him, but we mostly have been doing haunches-in at the walk and trot. Since he was so committed to forward by this point, the half pass flowed super nicely. It's not ready for the GP by any means, but it is quite good! To the left I felt like I had to lug him over a bit, so we'll work on that, and to the right he got crowded on my right aids (which is normal for him) so I had to keep him off my right leg a bit more in it. Time for a bunch of half pass to leg yield zig zags.

Half pass to the left (from afar lol)

Half pass to the right

At the end of all of this trotting, she had me do a couple of medium trots, sitting of course, why would I post them? We got through it but it showed me that I very much need to make these things more of a priority. She wanted me to get all the energy I needed in the corner, and then just allow it out across the diagonal. I felt like it was that way for... a quarter of the diagonal? Before I had to put my leg back on and push him more. I don't want to feel like I'm shoving him along in the mediums.

TC: weeee
Megan's abs: NOOOOOOO

We took a walk break after that and she told me a bit about an article she read on sitting trot. I guess they compared the mechanics of three types of riders - beginners, intermediate (read: you and me), and professionals. Apparently the professionals stabilized their spine near their upper back. I dunno, I need to read this article, but it reminded me that I need to work on my backline a bit more. It's getting floppy again.

From there, Tanya had me canter. I asked whether she wanted to see a walk to canter and she said sure, so I messed it up by not waking him up enough at the walk. Then we got it though, and Tanya said it was quite good!

I want more throughness eventually but we legit just started to
put these in our regular work

We started with some 10m canter circles, which I have only really done when he's been bad. To the left, they were the actual worst because he wasn't coming off my right side enough. To the right they were surprisingly good! Sounds like we have a lot of 10m canter circles to the left in our future...

Double circle to the left because he started out a bit hollow in
his first one

The right one was quite good to begin with! Still obviously
needs more throughness but I'm super pleased with the rideability

Tanya had us do an exercise in canter where you basically turn from A to R and then slowly turn it into a leg yield at the canter. Historically I've felt like canter leg yield (from the inside leg) is kind of silly just because it happens in the moment of suspension and so it's just kind of teaching them to jump sideways the wrong way... but for a horse like TC who has been pretty resistant to being pushed sideways generally at the canter, it did feel like it helped a lot.

To the right, my damn left hand ruins everything

To the left, much easier

After a few of those, we were to go across the diagonal and ride a half 20m counter canter circle. I made a mistake in these. TC has counter canter and totally gets it, doesn't try to change or break or anything. But I haven't done them in a court before, so I was so focused on the geometry that I kind of dropped my leg off of him at the very end of the half circle, so after all the hard stuff.

My mistake was telling him it was okay in a nice voice and therefore praising him for breaking. It's not like I should have gotten after him for my mistake, but praising that move meant that from then on, he'd get through the hard part of the counter canter and then trot and be like "yes?? good at dressage???" Soooo I had to redo that a few times to get him to not think that trotting in the counter canter was part of the movement. Then he caught on and was great!

Let's just pretend that he didn't totally break after this

This way (the second direction) went a tiny bit better just because
I was more committed to the movement

After all of that, we were done! I was super proud of him. He's stepping up to the Second level work really well and is taking the pressure of it better than I thought he would. I think it helps that last year we were touching on a lot of these movements already, so he's familiar with having to hold his counter canter and do shoulder-in/half pass. But it's still really cool to go over it all in a lesson!

I love how he's going and while we've got a TON of work to do, I'm so happy with how far he's come already this year. I'm really curious to know, given where he's at now, if Tanya thinks he could do the FEI levels. But I'm a little nervous to ask. We'll just keep plugging away! I certainly think he's going to continue to be a bombing lower level horse.