All Breeds 2018

Last year, TC and I won USDF All Breeds for Training Level Friesian Sporthorse. This year, my goal was to once again qualify and see if we could do it again, this time at First Level...

They even sent me a tote bag, cool!

And we did!!

I'm so excited for this result. His breed is obviously not super competitive, but it is cool to say that he's the top Friesian Sporthorse in the country at First level. I love doing the All Breeds thing. With no more medals to gather and not enough money to do regionals each year, it's been really fun to have something to try to qualify for each year.

All Breeds requires four shows, four judges, and eight scores, so I kind of structure our show season around it. TC almost ruined it last year by being a dingbat at our second to last show, forcing me to do an extra show, but for the most part, I can really figure out what the show budget is going to be. I... have a spreadsheet with all of the shows within a reasonable distance, how much each cost, and how much gas it takes to get there.

Super excited to try to qualify at Second Level next year! And maybe regionals is in the books for us this year too if I find like five thousand dollars in the dryer. One day we'll make it! But for now, we have All Breeds and pretty championship ribbons (hopefully).

It's Going to be All Right

This week the new 2019 dressage tests came out. I figured I'd go through some of my first impressions just for fun. I also figured I'd use Arrested Development gifs to do it because why would I not?

I'm going to just go over the major changes. There are some minor ones to some of the tests where the movements are the same but reversed or there are letter changes. To be perfectly honest, I didn't read every single test with it's old version open and compare. I just didn't.

But I totally read them enough to have an opinion though, okay?

My facebook notifications when the new tests came out

The introductory tests are basically the exact same. Same with Training 1 and Training 2. I'm supportive of not changing those tests. Training 2 is a fabulous test, in my opinion.

Woohoo less new tests to memorize!

Training 3
I do like that they added the three loop serpentine rather than keeping the loop. First, on a nutty young horse, a serpentine a) gives you more time in the court and b) gives you more time on a curved line in case your horse decides to explode. They also take away having to ride the canter across the diagonal, which is nice on a young horse with a giant canter. By far getting through that short side in that canter was the hardest part of Training level.

I do kind of think that the loop is important for riders to learn to ride... though I think given where I am as a rider, I prefer the serpentine. The next time I show Training 3, it will probably be on a nutty young horse. It'd be nice to see that loop show up in the rider test for this level. I, er, didn't look to see if they had new rider tests.

Thanks for more time in the court, T3

First 1 & 2
They kept these tests pretty much the same too. I'm happy about that as well!

I hate change

First 3
I hate what they did to this test. IMO the trot work is too easy in the new test. I think that the leg yield zig zag was a wonderful movement. If you're sitting there celebrating that you never have to do one of these, you're wrong. Learn to do this movement. Learn to do it well. Not learning how to do it properly will come back to bite you in the half pass and in the half pass zig zag. There's a reason why it was included in the first place.

LEARN YOUR FUCKING ZIG ZAG

Second 1
I think the changes they made to this test are GREAT. There are no canter to walk transitions and only two walk to canter transitions. I did think that asking someone to do a walk transition out of counter canter in the first test you ever ask for a canter to walk in was kind of asking for some shit. Most horses won't find that difficult, but riders sure fuck it up royally (myself included).

My only qualm is that maybe people will just do this test and then skip through to Third without truly learning how to do a canter to walk transition. But that happens already, so whatever. But seriously, just like the leg yield zig zag, canter to walk transitions happen for a reason so learn to be real fucking good at them. I don't know a horse with a halfway decent canter pirouette that can't do a bomb ass canter to walk transition.

Probably my favorite change is making this test more accessible
Not that TC and I had any issues with the old test, but man I can
see this being a big help toward a lot of First Level + riders

Second 2
I'm quite disappointed with Second 2. The trot work is pretty much the same, which is fine. I liked how that rode when I rode it earlier this month. For the canter work, they've basically taken 2-1 and put it into this test: simple changes in a serpentine and then just going across the short diagonal and down the long side for counter canter. I'm not cool with this. This means that 2-3 is the only test with what I'll call "real" counter canter. I mean, you can crank the horse's head to the side in this pattern, but doing a full half 20m circle in counter canter requires you to actually ride it mostly properly.

Plus, it's the same pattern as 2-1 except that now you do a canter to walk vs a canter to trot transition. I dunno, it feels repetitive if you were to ride both tests in the same day, which I plan on doing.

Literally there is only ONE test with REAL COUNTER
CANTER??????

THEN as if they want to kick me when I'm already down, they have you end with medium trot on centerline. Fuck that. I hate this test.

Why do you want to see my sad, strained face in medium trot
on centerline???

Second 3 & pretty much all of Third Level
Why change something that's already perfect?

I love you, 3-1, you're written so well (except that damn trot half
pass pattern, it's not steep enough!)

Fourth 1

There is only a minor change in this test but it makes me happy! Instead of picking up the canter right after a walk pirouette, you get to turn off the line and go to C before picking it up. I think that's really exciting. 

THANK YOU especially as someone who has
a horse who gets slow in the walk pirouettes

Fourth 2

They left this test the same, which is fine... When I had to do 4-2 it included working half pirouettes but these are much better. I'm torn between being like "if I had to do this shit, so does everyone else" and also thinking that 4-2 doesn't look so un-doable for TC in the next couple of years...

Maybe half working pirouettes?

Fourth 3

I had such high hopes for the 4-3 guys. The last time they made changes I was just fucking not having it. Luckily I didn't have to show it since I didn't have the horse to do it. 

Me about the 2015 4-3 test

This time I'm painfully aware that TC will (hopefully) be showing this test. I need to do it for All Breeds, I need to do it if I'm doing regionals... ugh. 

When I have to do 4-3 on TC

Alright... they did do one thing I like. They took out that fucking double rein back bullshit. My horse will hopefully be the most perfect animal by then and be able to do any amount of rein backs in a row, but I'm really glad they took it out. 

Before I read the canter work

They have left the other stupid movement in there that I hate: the 10m half circle in counter canter. Look, I get that a horse knocking on the door of Prix St George should be able to do a 10m half circle in counter canter. But just fuck that movement, okay?

They also took out the four tempis and just have three tempis on a double coefficient. This kinda sucks but kinda doesn't, and it depends on the horse. Rico and I (mostly me) were always better in threes than in fours, so it'd be nice to get 2x the score for the threes and just not have the fours. BUT there are fours in PSG so why not have both or just the fours in 4-3? I don't understand. 

Where are the fours???

Generally, my feeling toward 4-3 remains the same. I hate it. And now I have to ride it. Like this particular version of it. Ugh. I don't want to do it. 

Please no

WW: Four Videos

Just in case anyone wants to watch a lot of videos today, here are the videos from our show this weekend. And again I can't explain how much I love this horse!

If you just want to see hilarity ensue, click on the last video and skip to about half way through when he jumps out of the court. Cool.


Saturday - First Level Test 1, 69.259%

Saturday - First Level Test 3, 70.000%

Sunday - First Level Test 2, 73.438%

Sunday - First Level Test 3, 69.265%

Making Headlines Just for Kicks

This title is part of a song I like: New Bohemia by Transviolet, I'm not so vain, we did not make any headlines, but it was a pretty amazing day.

I was so glad to have stayed in the hotel overnight (and also glad that I opted for the less sketchy option of my hotel choices) because I was able to sleep in a bit, get a free breakfast, and it only took 5 minutes to drive over to the show! I don't think I'm going to be so opposed to doing multi-day shows... except for the expense of it.

TC and I went for a walk when I first got to the show, and then I gave him some food, re-braided him, and got to watch the Prix St George class before going back to meet Kate, who again drove up the night before to eat dinner with me and then came BACK to see us go on Sunday.

Caught me mid-half halt! 

He's so much fun omg

I got on a bit later on Sunday than on Saturday because I didn't think TC would have so many basilisk moments and he didn't! In fact, the horse that came out was as good as I could have asked him to be. We did the absolute minimum warm up before heading in.

The first test, which was 1-2, felt really good. The only parts I was disappointed in was the leg yields and the canter lengthening to the left. The leg yield pattern just sucks in that test, TC's leg yields get better and more cadenced as they get steeper, and the 1-2 leg yield is super shallow. Half way through, I felt like I kind of phoned it in on both of them. Like it was a little too easy and I just dumped him over rather than really focused on making him take big loose steps. The left lead canter lengthening started out amazing but then I let him swap in front for a couple of steps. Gah!

But the judge didn't seem to think it was that bad. Literally other than our two centerlines, no score was under a 7. We got 8s on both leg yields (lol okay), the canter circle right, the stretch circle, and the lengthening to the right. Four eights and two of them on double coefficients!! We grabbed 7.5s on a ton of other things too, like the left canter circle, the free walk, the second lengthening in trot. Comments: Athletic, talented horse. Improve halts! because once again both our centerlines were 6s, so embarrassing!! The collectives nearly made me cry. An 8 on gaits and rider position, 7.5s on impulsion and rider effectiveness, and a "low" 7 on submission since he always scores lowest there due to TC-antics.

Lengthening

He's so pretty D: 

Final score was a 73.4%. What the actual hell. When Kate told me I got goosebumps. One paragraph of sappiness and then on to the next test okay? I've been battling against TC and my past when it comes to my confidence in the pair of us this year. He was a horse I found in a pasture who was going to be sold as a trail horse. I took a chance on him, his lateral canter, his choppy trot, his sensitive mind.

We've gone through so much, this horse has terrified me, he's been for sale, I've hated him. But we continued to push through and now I'm that person that always annoyed me with their fancy horse and their refusal to move up before scoring like this. This was the second highest score of the day, behind a very good rider on a very nice horse. This was only one of a few scores in the 70s the judge handed out all day. I'm so proud of this test and so beyond proud of this horse.

Telling him he's the best pony and he's like "Yis I know this already"

Uuuunfortunately the horse is probably only a three test weekend kinda guy. We kept our next warm up very very short and went in to put in a very respectable 1-3 test. Both leg yields got 8s again in the zig zag, and we also grabbed an 8 on our canter lengthening left. Lots of 7.5s including the right lead canter circle and both counter canter loops. I can't believe how well he's scoring at his canter work, which was always 6s/6.5s last year.

Unfortunately in this test, I lost my outside aids after the canter lengthening we got an 8 on, and he went careening out of the arena. Like the universe saw my ego inflating and needed to remind me that despite grabbing a high score, just an hour later I could totally lose power steering.

Sweet summer child so happy about the lengthening that she
takes her outside aids off riiiiight about here

Just... lol we are not supposed to be on this side of the court

Luckily it's happened enough before where I stopped him before he completely left. He had one leg left in the arena. That's not an elimination. The judge didn't ring the bell. We continued.

At the end of the test I said thank you, apologized, and immediately asked if we'd been eliminated. We had not. The judge had said that not all legs left the arena so we were okay! I was SO RELIEVED. I didn't even care what the score was, I knew it was in the 60s at least and that we were going to qualify for All Breeds. PHEW.

It was a good score, a 69.2%. I was a bit disappointed, seeing as the transition from the lengthening to the working canter got brought down to a 4 from a 7.5. That's my 70%. Boo. But sometimes after you've had a really amazing life changing dressage test, you need your horse to try to jump out of the arena just to make sure you don't get too cocky. So here I am, not too cocky about the show.

I am still happy though

But really, this was such an amazing weekend. These four scores are the highest scores he's gotten at First level, and we got blue ribbons for all of them. The tests were as clean as they're going to get given the horse I have currently. The judge loved him. I actually got a lot of compliments that weren't just "wow you can really sit some shit" like I normally get when he's kind of a nut. It's just so nice to feel like our hard work is paying off.

Once again I feel like I just need to believe in us a little more. The trajectory we're on is great, my trainer is great, I'm finally feeling fit enough to ride him, and he gets better and better the more places we go. I can't wait to see how things go for us in the future.

We have a little break between now and our potential next show. I'm not sure if I just want to end the year on this high note and come out next spring at Second or if I want one more show this year for miles and to possibly try 2-1 before winter. Who knows. I'm sure I'll have a long winding post about it later.

For now I'm just ecstatic. 

Some Nice Basics

Friday night I got off work and went straight home to get everything ready for TC's first ever overnight show this last weekend. And, looking back, my first overnight dressage show since 2009! The facility was the same as the one we were at last October, so TC has been there, though if you remember, this was the show where TC bolted up centerline, literally entering at A... spooking. Damn this blog name.

You guys

The whole weekend was basically me asking "is this actually
my horse??" for better or for worse lol

The drive wasn't bad other than a bit of traffic right as we got on the highway. TC unloaded great and walked around the property without any issues. We found his stall and I stuck him in there while I brought all my stuff in. It was so nice to have the stall! I totally get why people do this (as I'm writing this on Saturday night from my hotel room 6 minutes away from the facility). The stall was a gigantic permanent one, so it had an auto water trough and I wasn't worried about TC climbing on anything, becoming cast, or poking his nose through the wall to talk to anyone.

By the time I got everything unloaded and changed into my show clothes, it was time to get on. I had wanted about 45 minutes to warm up just in case TC was a dingbat. And let me tell you, TC was a dingbat.

His new thing is to be walking totally calm and normal on a loose rein, squeal loudly, and then leap into basilisk mode. So we did that and then cantered for like 15 minutes. There was some porpoising, but it was much less obnoxious than the video I had posted last week.

There were still some antics, it is TC after all

The beginning of that naughtiness, oops

The nice thing about this facility is the enormous covered arena with mirrors to warm up in. So while I was trying to get TC to chill out, we did a lot of great stuff. I schooled the shoulder-in and half passes. The shoulder-in looks great! The half pass needs a bit more balance before it's ready for the show ring, he gets a bit stacked up in it. We also schooled some counter canter, which I like doing (for now) in the bigger rings to get him used to riding it without having it be so hard. And we did a few walk pirouettes, which were foot perfect!

He did eventually settle into his work, but it was a little tense. I worked really hard to get him to stretch into contact but he mostly wanted to just run past his tempo and get short in the neck. Cool.

Petting him in the stretch circle to try to keep him stretching
rather than running off with me... 

That inside hind leg is making me so happy these days! And
when he was so tense in warm up too

Unfortunately the first test, after TC did another walk-quietly-then-squeal maneuver as we were getting ready to go in, reflected this. But we only had one bobble, a scoot after C. The rest of the test went pretty well, especially given what we had in warm up.

Highlights were 7.5s on the trot loopy thing to the right, the stretch circle, the free walk, the change of rein at the canter, and the second trot lengthening! Everything else was 7s and a few 6s/6.5s. The entire show (four classes, eight centerlines), I got 6s on our centerlines and halts. It was really annoying. But overall for this test, we got a 69.2%, one of our highest scores! Comments were: Talented horse! Continue to improve bend and stretch fwd and down for suppleness in the back. Agreed!

His lengthenings are much better when he's not tense from
being am idiot in warm up, oh well

Turn, TC, turn!

TC was pretty settled in the warm up for our second test, just a few zippy moments. We schooled all the movements and everything felt really good. He was stretching into contact a little better too! I mean the horse probably cantered for like 40 minutes that day...

Back into the ring and we had a really respectable test. There was one major issue, in that he scooted and bucked pretty good in our second 15m canter circle for a pretty glorious four.

Highlights included the 7.5 and 8 we got on the leg yields (!! this horse took me literal years to get him to let me push him sideways) with the comment "quite fluid" which it was. We got another 8 on the canter circle to the right, and 7.5s on both counter canter loops. I kind of messed up my canter lengthenings because they are only supposed to go 3/4 of the way down the long side and I went all the way down. Oops. No error but we got a 6.5 on the transition.

We ended with a 70% right on the nose! And we won (there was another person in the class, she missed us by .5 points). It was super amazing to hit 70%! And on such a hard test! I was SO so so excited about this. We've been so close to 70% in the past and we finally got it! The comments were great too, the judge said: Lovely horse! Will be super when a bit more confident and focused. Some nice basics! and like... man it feels so good to get a comment on the basics. I work so hard on those! We really only school movements 1-2x/week at this point.

Leg yield left, the judge loved our leg yields this show! They
are coming along nicely 

He's such a cool horse

At the end of the day, Kate came up for dinner! I've been having some issues with my anxiety lately and so Kate drove all the way out to come out with me on Saturday night (and then came out to help me on Sunday too!) despite having to teach all day on Saturday and on Sunday morning. So thank you Kate, that meant SO MUCH to me. We went out to sushi and got boba and then went and visited TC before I went to my hotel and watched a movie/wrote this post.

Stay tuned for the next day, which goes even better!!

Whatever Happens, Happens

TC and I have our possibly last show of the season this weekend. I'm really not sure what I want to do after this one.

I'm not too excited about this show. Given how TC was in our last show, I'm kind of expecting a repeat and am already annoyed about having to spend money to stay overnight. I am, however, excited to sleep in a hotel, since I sleep better in hotels usually and I am forced to sit there and relax. Also Kate may come up and join me, which would be so fun!

I miss showing here

Honestly at this point, I'm hoping that we are very early in TC's career, and a year (or several years) of really questionable behavior in the show ring is fine.

Looking back at Rico's career, I regret fretting over the individual shows or even full show seasons so much. If something isn't working, it needs to be changed, but sometimes it's just miles. I feel 100% confident in the path that we're on. Now it's just a matter of throwing him in the show ring and seeing what happens, working through the issues that arise because we're in the ring. The training is good.


So this is our last ditch effort to get our All Breeds scores for this year. We need three scores over 60% (which, TC, means you have to be good enough for me to not want to withdraw you), two of which need to be at 1-3, which we are doing exactly two times.

If we get our scores, great. I don't know what the rankings look like and I don't really care to put the pressure on us to try to win it. Winning All Breeds was super cool last year, but our scores are lower this year and he's less reliable. Really, it's that we're showing at different, spookier facilities. Last year we got all of our scores at my trainer's barn's shows.

One day he will be such a star in the show ring... consistently

Don't let this post fool you, I am optimistic and excited to be showing again. I can't wait to see if we can get that medium trot in the show ring and see how it scores. I love how he's going right now and with the test feeling so easy, hopefully the whole thing will just be super fun.

Or I might get more basilisk wrangling practice. Whatever.

Withdrawn

I was really hopeful for Sunday going into it. My ride time was earlier in the day, we just had one test (the 1-3), my parents had decided to come visit Sacramento that day so had agreed to come to the horse show and then we'd carpool into the city for lunch, he had gotten ridden pretty hard the day before, and it was scheduled to be much cooler (well, 88 degrees is still hot, but it's not 107 hot). 

All I needed was to get through this test, to get a 60% on it. TC generally scores in the mid to high 60s (I say generally and we've shown First level like... twice) so something would have to go terribly wrong to score lower than that. 

I got there with PLENTY of time to spare and gave myself 40 minutes to warm up. From the moment my butt hit the saddle, I knew that it might be a shit show. 

And it WAS a shit show, I hate being right

He generally was really well behaved in warm up, but he gets this feeling... I can't describe it. He can look totally nice and quiet and normal from the outside, but it's like I'm sitting on a rocket barely holding it together. I looked in the mirror and he looked *amazing* and I thought that maybe we can pull this off.

But underneath it all, I could feel an absolute psychotic mess of a horse. 

It wasn't like he was upset or pissed off or tired or cranky or in pain. He was having the absolute time of his life. He was shaking his neck at every horse who passed him, thought a horse doing lead changes near him was doing the COOLEST THING and tried to join in. He had a giant manic smile on his face. YAY HORSE SHOW BEST EVER LET'S PLAY YOU LOOK LIKE YOU'RE DOING SOMETHING FUN ME TOO. 

So when he held his shit together, he felt amazing. A bit locked in his back due to being on the brink of an explosion (a behavior I used to call "baby totilas" since he feels super giant but kind of mechanical), but amazing. 

Leg yield pattern rode pretty well at least

Forty minutes of mostly cantering later and I still had this feeling. My mom said "wow, he sure is fit now" and I was thinking yes, a bit too fit. But we had to go in, so off we went. I told myself, he hasn't done anything necessarily WRONG today, he just feels amped, maybe this is a good thing. 

It was not. 

I knew things were going to be bad when he bolted into the arena where the show ring was like I HAVE ARRIVED. He then thought that a golf cart was the Most Interesting Thing and wanted to shutter to a halt to stare at it. I got him back forward and we had a lot of leaping and shaking his neck. I thought about scratching right there... but also thought that maybe I could hold it together. 

I could not. 

Look how fucking short he can get nose to tail, that is not fun
to ride when he does it out of the blue like he did here

Up centerline we got a 7, then we turned for our lengthening and he leapt into the air and went to bolt, for a 3. Then we got a 7 and a 6.5 on our leg yield zig zag. Then another 3 on our stretch circle as I went to carefully put him lower and he went to buck. Then a 6.5, a 7, and a 6.5 on the circle pattern. At this point I knew I wanted to withdraw. I didn't know what the scores were, but we did not show ANY stretch at all unless you count the stretching of his underline as he went to buck. That's a double coefficient.

But I wasn't sure what to do. I guess I could just stop and say bye to the judge, but honestly I was really curious how the canter work was going to ride. So I kept going. He picked up the cross canter (WTF) into the right lead, went way crooked trying to take off with me in the lengthening, did a really nice quality loop, then proceeded to do his shit version of tempi changes across the diagonal, just like flinging his legs around like an idiot, picking up the wrong lead several times, and then finally landing on the new lead okay. 

Again the loop rode nicely, though he swapped leads on the lengthening. After that I was super fucking done so I waved at the judge and walked out. Judge told me to come up and said that he could have made me keep going. Um. If you had I might have just let him trot right out of the arena. An E vs a W is the same thing in dressage basically. Plus I'm not planning on selling him any time soon, so fuck his record (mostly, I didn't want to put a sub-60 score on him if I didn't have to). 

Right before some leaping, look at that mischievous face like
"I'm going to do something hilarious, hold my beer" 

Overall comments were "nice horse but a brat today, good luck," which I think summed up the whole weekend to be honest! He is a really nice horse. He's sweet and kind and silly. Sometimes too silly... Nothing he throws at me is hard to sit, he keeps his head up in his bucks and generally goes in a straight line. He thinks this is fun. 

So overall, a really bad show! But it was fun to hang out in Sacramento with my parents. We went to lunch (thanks Peony for the recommendation because despite being here for three months now, I've been to maybe two restaurants, it's what happens when you buy a trailer and refuse to stop showing lol) and then went to the tack store near my house. 

Then they took off and I sat at home and let the cortisol drain out of me. Yay horse shows... I'm glad the next one isn't for another month and a half, I need a break! And a trail ride I think.  

Collecting TC's Canter

After the show, things with TC have been really great. The two days of clicker training the connection leading up to it really made a huge difference and changed the way I was riding it.

My main goal with the connection moving forward is to get the feeling that TC is about to stretch down into a stretchy trot even in the most collected work. So clicking for that and then riding with that in mind has been huge.

As we glance at 1-3 for the next show (I want to ride it at least once I think, we'll see, no decisions have been made), I also have some of Second level in mind too. TC is schooling all of the movements from Second fairly easily, though the quality of the gaits/basics is still not quite there, of course. The big issue, other than probably the medium gaits (which would be fine, they'd just be 6s) is the collected canter.

Still not quite collected enough for Second, but getting there!

To work on the collected canter, Tanya has basically just had me half halt and then press him out of it. There's no fancy exercises over here. I've been basically doing the same thing, though doing the lengthened canter first, and then over-collecting him, then going back to his normal working canter.

My main goals/things I'm thinking about in the collected canter are as follows:

Don't stay in it for so long that he wants to break
I don't want TC to dread the half halt coming into the collected canter, nor do I want him to think that the half halt will ever mean to break from canter. So we hold it for maybe 3/4 of a 15m circle at most, then leave, then come back. Eventually we'll be doing this in and out of pirouette canter too. Never staying in it for longer than he can easily do, just pushing a tiny bit at a time. I want a super reliable collected canter, which will lead to a super reliable pirouette canter, and then I won't have a horse who halts in pirouettes like the last one so wanted to do...


Really lift his withers with the slingshot
It's easy to ride him downhill in the "collected" canter and have him slow down by pressing his front feet downward into the ground vs having him actually lower the hind quarters and bend his hocks in the stance phase of the gait. So my way of combating this is to have the slingshot be the main aid for collecting him rather than my reins. That seems like a no duh kind of thing, but it's super easy to pull on the reins when asking a horse to collect. Not the aid I want him to do it by.


Keep him out to the bridle
TC's go-to move is to throw his neck in my face. Scary thing? Neck in face. Half halt? Neck in face. New movement? Neck in face. Most of training TC is making sure that his neck is not in my face. One way I've been making sure of this is assigning rein lengths for each gait. Trot and canter are at 2 notches (trot is at the notch, canter in front of it), walk is at 3. If I find myself shortening the reins more than that, or having my hands in my lap, then I'm losing him.

Keeping him up and out to the contact just like this!

If he lightens, make sure it's not dead lightness
Collected gaits mean the horse gets lighter in the bridle not because of the connection as much as the lowering of the hindquarters. If he gets lighter but I feel like his neck is in my face (see above) and/or that he's behind the bit, this is bad. But if he gets lighter but I can put my leg on and he'll reach for the bit, this is good lightness.


The moment he gets stuck/behind my leg, pop him out of it
The collected canter HAS to be in front of my leg. This is a path I walked down with Rico and don't want to repeat it. It makes everything harder when the collected canter gets lethargic. I want him to think that every time we're in the collected canter, he needs to be ready to blast out of it. That kind of ability takes time, horses get quite stuck in the collection when they can't push out. I think of it as the difference between a squat and a jump squat. I want jump squats out of this horse (not literally pls).


Make sure my seat continues to say canter
One of the things that I accidentally did when working at the canter with Rico was broke my canter to trot transition. Tanya told me that with TC, he should only trot when I drop my thigh a bit and stop my seat from cantering. As long as my seat says canter, he needs to canter. So I can't lie to him by accidentally dropping him and then getting after him for not continuing to canter, because then I won't have a canter to trot transition.

He's coming along so nicely :) 

Last week I had a really great time doing this, as I really felt like I accessed a more collected canter than I had previously thought TC could do. There was this feeling in Rico's pirouette canter where I felt like I could let go of the whoa aids and he'd just stay on the spot with my seat (now the slingshot) alone. I got that same feeling on TC (though less on the spot obviously) without him going dead in the contact or throwing his neck back at me. It was pretty magical! I think it's time to apply some clicker training to this to make him real eager to collect.

Show Videos

I finally got the videos from the horse show a week and a bit ago. I'm really excited to share them because I think he's looking really good. There's so much to work on, and we are definitely working on it. But for the first rated show of the season, our first time at this facility, and first time riding 1-2 in a rated show? Pretty dang good.

First Level Test 1

First Level Test 2

Today is my first Monday off for my 9/80 and my plan is to ride, go help some friends move, and then go to a museum with them! Then tomorrow it's back to 9 hour days, which really hasn't been so bad. I kind of wish this could be a permanent thing...

Back in the Rated Ring

This last Saturday TC and I competed in our first rated show of the year! We rode 1-1 and 1-2. Despite me really wanting to have a rated show at Training level this year, it worked out better to grab two First level scores at this show for All Breeds.

It was my first outing in my own rig! My hitch was too low, so Peony and Andy let me borrow their BP hitch for the weekend and then I'd be in the bay the next day to pick up another hitch. So thanks, guys! Literally could not have gone to the show without it.

I was super nervous about parking the trailer since I tend to get way over enthused about turning it and end up nearly jackknifing it constantly, but I figured someone would be at the show to help me if I got it real messed up. I'm nothing if not way over confident with my abilities at this point.

I was also nervous about TC being a loon because of the storm that was passing through just before the show. Excuse me, it is summer now, right? No more storms!

He's the best

All of those nerves were totally unfounded!! TC was AMAZING and I managed to not get myself into any trouble with the trailer. I'm really not sure what I'm more excited about.

My ride times were kind of late, so I took my time getting ready to go. I hooked up the trailer early just in case it took me a while, but it didn't, so I was able to clean my bridle really thoroughly and double/triple check my list of things to bring.

Once as it was time to go, TC loaded up well and we were off! I was a bit uncomfortable at first but the trailer hauled great and I managed to not hit anyone parking it at the facility. TC came out and was really curious to wander around, so we explored for about thirty minutes. He's getting better and better at new places. He was a bit up at first, but wasn't that spooky and seemed mostly excited to be there.

Always blocking me from the camera

Warm up was held in the covered arena, which had mirrors (yay!) but was kind of spooky (bleh!). TC warmed up okay, he felt super in the bridle but he also felt a bit explosive. You know when you just... know... there's something in there even though the horse is being really freaking good? Yeah, that was it. And sure enough he squealed and bucked at one point, then squealed and just like... spazzed on the spot at another point. We recovered though (well, my back is a different story, I posted both tests), and were able to go out in the court adjacent to the show ring and do a bit more warm up. Out there TC felt GREAT and we did the minimum, then headed in.

There were two judges for this show, I think they anticipated being able to run two rings but there weren't enough entries. TC was very interested in the judge at E. He wasn't spooky about it, but just very curious as to who those people were and why they were under that tent. He kept glancing at them as we trotted around and then came up centerline. He couldn't stay very focused, so he came in on centerline kind of crooked, didn't halt square, and then stared at that judge while I saluted. Judge at C felt left out so we got a 5.

We got a 7.5 from both judges on our stretch circle, 7s on our walk-trot-canter transitions, which are always rough, and just a whole lot of 7s everywhere else. A few 6s/6.5s occurred when I totally forgot what letter my lengthening was going from and nearly missed it, and our centerlines could use some work. Or at least, TC could stay more focused on them.

Collectives were a bunch of 7s for both judges. Comments were that we were a nice pair and that TC was a handsome horse that appeared willing (lol I'm glad we give off that appearance). Overall score was a 68.61%, both judges were within .5 points of each other, so that was cool!

TC held this posture while I saluted, this is just after that
moment when I'm trying not to burst out laughing

Getting ready for the second test was kind of a shit show. I lost the backing of my gold medal pin, which I knew would happen eventually since it's been loose. While I was figuring out how to get it to stay on with no backing, the loose button on my jacket popped off too. Damnit! I managed to safety pin the button on and that worked out just fine, then I tied some yarn around the back of my gold medal pin and I can't believe it stayed on! Both need dealing with but at least we got through it without having anything pop off.

For the second test, I didn't go back to the covered warm up, just went to the neighboring court and had about five minutes to do some leg yields. TC really doesn't require much warm up for a second test.

First 2 was great too! I felt like I lost a bit of rideability at the canter though. I think that was just that he was getting tired. But still, we grabbed an 8 from one judge on our right leg yield, got some 7s on our lengthened canters. The only major downside was that I got an error because I went to the wrong letter in my second trot lengthening. I HATE these damn weird three-quarter length lengthenings. Just let me go corner to corner, damnit!

Collectives were again a bunch of 7s. Comments were super nice though, judge at C said "very steady and balanced horse overall, nice team," which made me really happy. Judge at E said "lovely horse, appears willing." The judges disagreed a tiny bit on the scores, Judge at E gave us a 67.2% and judge at C gave us a 69.4%. Damn those errors!

Canter lengthening, these were shockingly scoring pretty well
for a movement that he couldn't do until recently because he
would squeal and take off with me in them. 

Hauling home was a breeze. TC loaded up great, I managed to turn the rig around without hitting the cars that had parked, in my opinion, a little close. TC came out of the trailer well at home and I managed to park it in it's spot (I have to back in between another trailer and a tree) without hitting anything or jackknifing the thing. I think I have it all figured out!

Now that I've had the trailer out, I have a few things in mind that I want to stock in it. Like extra lapel pins. And a sewing kit for loose buttons. And a mirror to tell if I've lost any buttons or pins recently.

But not to complain at all- the whole show was stellar, I'm SO excited about how it went, I kind of can't believe it. We've only had two lessons together since the last show! And bonus, I felt like I had my actual horse in the show ring, which was not the case all last year.

We of course have a ton to work on, but for right now I'm just really excited.

Upright Spinal Processes

I had two really amazing rides on TC this last weekend. We're working hard on the stuff I learned from Alexis and Kate recently, as well as making sure that all of our First level stuff is set for what will hopefully be our first shows this month.

He's like "please just put me away"

One thing that I didn't mention about Kate coming to visit is that she rode TC. She ended up riding him on a day that was NOT a good day to ride him. TC is generally really a good boy, but there are days where he can be rather unrideable. It's usually when stuff is going on around him that he wants to look at/spook at and he gets himself all in a tither and just can't be with you right now. Kate rode him beautifully through it, I told her when I got on that she better keep a lid on him or she'd be getting run away with. Then I kinda just left her to her own devices and talked to Nicole. Poor Kate. But she is one of our stickiest friends so...

Aside from riding him through some shit, Kate said some words that really resonated with me. She said that TC's spinal processes were almost always pointed right.

This is 110% caused by my right thigh not being on my horse for however many weeks/months/years/forever. I've made lots of room for his spine to be tilted to the right. This really clarified a few things for me:

1) TC feels way more balanced to the left but is harder to get a feeling of throughness on
2) TC's left circle feels more balanced but his right one is easier to get smaller
3) TC's right lead feels like it's on the forehand more often than the left

It also makes sense as to why I have so much practice pulling my right leg up, his body just disappears below it so it feels like I have to reach up to put my leg on, which takes my thigh off even more, making him lean more. Dressage is fun.

I still think he looks so awkward, but at least he's getting a neck
and a booty!

That, and Kate's assertion that I need to stop pulling on the left rein, made a huge difference moving forward. I feel like I can actually ride him to the left. I still super want to pull on the left rein but I'm resisting it pretty well I think.

Since fixing this issue and really drilling the canter work, TC has been feeling great. Both Saturday and Sunday we tackled some of the stuff from First level, including leg yields, lengthenings, and stretchy trot.

After our wander around the field on both days, we played around with some trot work in warm up. I'm mostly doing circles and changing directions in trot to help myself notice the spinal processes and to get him loosened up and stretching into contact. It's really apparent when changing directions where the spinal processes are pointed, and I'm trying to keep them upright. Having something like that to think about gets my right thigh on him a bit better than just thinking about putting it on. Feeling the difference in his balance is really motivating.

The circles have been something that I've been neglecting. It gets easy to ride on a bunch of straight lines in the big arena amidst all the jumps, so I've started using certain areas where there isn't a ton of room to try to fit circles in. We start with big ones and then work our way down toward 10 meters. At 1-1 and 1-2, we don't really need the full circles at that size, but 1-3 has one in each direction. He can do them, but it's hard to compress the trot enough without losing cadence or energy. So we work our way down and I try to focus on continuing to kneel into the trot so he maintains energy and cadence in the smaller steps.

After those circles, we usually canter. I've been forcing myself to do the lengthened canter a bit more, so after a few 15 meter circles, we played with it. In talking with Alexis, she noted that if the horse was going to act up in the canter lengthening because they were a dork like mine, she didn't really ride them. Going away from the judge, they can't really see the difference between no lengthening and a conservative lengthening, so they will often just throw you a 6-7 score and say "needs more" or something. I'm not one for half assing it, but I'm going to keep that in my back pocket.

The lengthenings aren't bad, actually. We can really push for a lot in the big arena without having to worry about it as much as in a smaller arena. He's playing less in it and we haven't had our patented turn-lengthening-into-bolt maneuver in a long while. He's also not the worst at coming back from it, maybe due to all the times I had to slow him down when he has done such antics.


After the canter work, it was time for trot lengthenings. I really wish I had mirrors, because it feels really good but this horse often feels good and looks terrible in things like this. I focused as much as I could to maintain a bit of carrying in the hind legs, since his tendency is to push his hind legs out behind him and fling his knees up to hold his balance. The connection felt good, so I think we avoided that.

My own tendency in the lengthenings is to let go of my thigh and pick my legs up a bit too much. I think this is left over from Rico and also that TC is still green in them so he still thinks "oh, faster? Cool!" rather than understanding that the lengthenings are a thing we do. I can't quite plop him into it yet. It's like when he was learning leg yield and it was just kind of a drift, vs now he confidently leg yields over.  That just takes time, so we're going to be doing a lot of lengthenings!

Leaning on my right thigh, well, where my right thigh would
be if I put it on

I threw in some leg yields amidst the trot lengthenings too. The leg yields feel pretty good these days, I absolutely drilled the lateral work at my old barn with the mirrors, so I think we're staying pretty straight in them. TC is also pretty good about steepening the leg yields or making them more shallow. If I have a complaint about them, it's that they still tend to lose cadence in them. I really need to do some long leg yields in posting trot and kind of hassle him over a bit.

He's quite good at the zig zag from 1-3, though I need to get in a court to see how I'm actually doing with the geometry of that movement. For some reason there's not much issue for him to be leg yielding one way and for me to just swap the other direction. He even does half pass zig zags in trot no problem. I really hope this bodes well for the upper level canter half pass zig zags, though I've found that those can be more dependent on the quality of the change than the quality of the trot zig zag... we'll see.

Overall, some super nice work out of this young horse. He's figuring out all the First level stuff nicely, and is even schooling a bit of Second (walk to canters when he breaks and I'm annoyed; canter to walks when he's quite balanced, walk pirouettes, counter canter, shoulder-in, and haunches-in). And we're of course continuing to school all the basics, lots of transitions (esp trot to canter, we gotta make those perfect) and figures.

Happy pony

I have HUGE NEWS. Well, for me. I am taking my first lesson on TC this Monday evening! There was an opening in a local clinic with a trainer I've been wanting to ride with and they were going to have to cancel it without another rider. I offered but said I had no way of getting to the facility so she offered to come to me! Barn owner agreed and said that we could write it on the board to get other people interested too. I'm really hoping this becomes a thing that we do, since one of the few downsides in my barn is that it's not infested with dressage trainers.