Precision

Despite still being a bit too sick to do anything ride, I headed to the barn on Sunday afternoon to ride a horse. Typical. I wasn't sure which horse and ended up feeling like TC would probably make me happiest, since he's been doing well and Rico always has the potential to feel NQR and that would make me feel even worse. So Rico was bumped to Monday.

Some fun photos of the ranch and... 

That weird old bay horse who lives in a pasture! Featuring... 

My really awful hands! Which improved after I saw these pictures

I arrived at the barn to find that the horses were all just fed. Poor TC was just sad as I took him away from his food to go work. But honestly, he wasn't too bad undersaddle.

There was one person in the arena, a beginner on a horse she had never ridden before. Luckily TC is now a steering pro, so we were able to dodge them and even let them follow us so she could trot.

We started with silly trotting, as usual, which was quite silly. He really wanted to play so much of the trotting was off the bit or shaking his head at me. Luckily that's basically all he does.

The lateral work was good! I'm working on getting him a little quicker to my aid in the turns on the forehand by using the whip, which he is starting to respond to pretty well. I can tap him a bit and he'll move over quicker. The leg yields have hit a bit of a wall, he hasn't improved in a few rides. I think he needs to understand crossing over, so I have plans to introduce leg yield along the rail pretty soon. Other than that, he moves over pretty well and understands the aid.

Back to trot but TC wants to change our workout plan to canter right after lateral work. He's really messing around with the canter and the transitions a lot. His canter is getting MUCH more comfortable and when he loses balance, he trots for a few steps and then picks it up right away again, rather than running off and being ridiculous at the trot.

He bucked ONCE in the beginning of the canter work and I smacked him with the whip this time. He tucked his little tail and never did it again. He's proven to me that he can canter without bucking, so now he gets a punishment rather than a threat to unbalance him. Learning what he cannot do is very hard- I've only ever said yes or tried to redirect him. But he needs to know that bucking is a NO, not a "hey let's do this instead" kind of thing.

I finally did get him back to trot and walk work by letting him add canter work when he was being good. I really want to be able to show him this spring, but he's pretty far off from showing. First- he's still struggling with circles and roundness and general obedience, but there are a few movements, even at intro, that he needs to do.

The first that I focused on was the free walk. TC didn't quite get the steering down, and it was a lot more like stretchy walk rather than free walk (which should be on a loose rein), but he did noticeably stretch forward and downward. The forward isn't there. When he goes forward, he retracts his neck, so learning to walk forward with his head and neck totally free will be a work in progress.

The second thing I wanted was transitions that were on the bit. He tends to fling his head up going from the walk to the trot, or wiggle with his nose on his chest. I've been kind of keeping it in mind the last few rides, but Sunday (because I was too sick to trot a bunch), we tackled it. By the end, he was trotting quite nicely from the walk while maintaining the connection. I even taught him a little feeling of half steps coming into walk, since his go-to walk transition is slamming on the breaks.

Overall, as usual, I'm pretty pleased with him! He tries really hard, doesn't have a mean bone in his body, and is always happy to do what I'm suggesting.

Love the piaffe on this one

I took Rico out yesterday! He hadn't been out in a week so I was expecting him to be a bit stiff and I was right. But he did get better and better throughout our workout.

I'm still doing boring stuff each ride- first position to improve straightness and canter transitions, shoulder-in to improve use of right hind leg, and lead changes for funzies.

The coolest thing about this horse remains the precision in our rides. Riding TC is all about the overall big picture. Is he on the bit most of the time? Is he going in kind of the direction I want? Does he trot sort of when I ask him to?

With Rico it's all about the precise small movements. I know he's going to be on the bit, but I want him to have a certain length of neck and I want him to use specific muscles and have a specific amount of contact on each specific bit (snaffle vs curb) as we go along. I know he's going to go where I ask him to, even down to knowing where each foot is going to fall as I ask him to go further into a corner or steer on a circle. I know he's going to canter when I ask him to, but I want him to stay perfectly straight, strike off with a specific amount of energy, maintain the connection over his back in a specific way.

I love that about riding him. It's the ultimate experience for someone who is rather type-A.

If you look closely, you can see a fat bay horse enjoying his pasture

I think I'm going to be able to make up my missed trail ride tomorrow on TC! But that means that Rico may not make it out since my time is a bit crunched. I doubt he will mind. But it's supposed to rain this weekend so I may feel a bit guilty about it. 

Get Shit Done

This weekend was a pretty productive one. Saturday I rode a client's horse and then boyfriend and I made a meal plan for the entire week and went to both costco AND the regular grocery store. Then Sunday we went to the farmer's market and I ran some errands. I even wrote some emails that I had been avoiding.

The little Prius was full when we left Costco, we barely fit the
regular groceries in there

Yesterday morning (Monday), I woke up early to get down to Crossfit. It was my second day back and first time that we had to do some heavy modifications for my wrist. I did the light push press in warm up and that was it for the wrist. So instead of doing the front squat to split jerk, I did a back squat to a back split jerk. So weird. I hate putting weight over my head from my back, but I'll have to get used to it because it's the only way I'll be able to continue. So overall, I was pretty happy! 

Then I came back home to go to a meeting for my non-horse job. I work very much part time (5-8 hours/week) for one of the professors at school. Great meeting but it kind of cramped my style when it came to not running around like a crazy person, because once as I was home, I changed into breeches and headed off to ride. Crossfit and the barns I ride at are right near each other. Home and school are a half hour north of there. Ugh so much driving yesterday. 

D'aww this one

I decided that, with no one in the arena for me to dodge, yesterday would be the day that the stupid gray baby would stop the obnoxious bucking. 

We started with trotting around the outside of the ring, working on the go button and getting him a bit steadier in the contact. I've been working hard to recognize how much he has changed and stop treating him like such a green bean (he still is VERY green though). This means that I was much lighter and more sophisticated with my aids and he caught on pretty well. He's a million times better at steering and staying on the rail at the trot- he only fought me a bit in the circle left as he fell right. Time to install that right rein half halt I think. 

Hiding behind the post

Then we came back to walk to work on lateral work. He knows his turns on the forehand pretty well now, he just needs some time to think about it and then he twirls around. The sides are evening up a bit better too, at first he would only do them off of the left leg. 

We're now working on leg yield (I like how all of my goals for the first quarter are now completed after... one month) at the walk. He's very very good off the right leg but struggles with the left. Interesting. Once as that starts to even out, I'm planning on taking them along the rail (he's doing them from centerline to the rail to start) to increase his ability to cross over. I like starting them that way so that the horses don't get backed off too much, then once as they understand the idea of going sideways and forward, teach them the crossover biomechanics. For a horse that is super laid back, I think it works well.

Learning! And graying even more. 

A bit more trot, where we focused on perfecting the twenty meter circle (he is now falling in to the right and out to the left, gah!), and then I tackled the canter. 

If you remember from the last couple of posts, the silly horse has been bucking and it is worst during the canter transitions (and sometimes during the canter but not as often). Ali and I came up with a few ideas- first is that it could be a reaction to my spur and second is that it could be a way to balance. I don't think it's malicious at all, but even if it isn't, I don't want him to have a bucking problem. 

First, I asked him to canter with just my leg and lightly grazed him with the spur- the same force I now use for the walk-trot transition (which was totally back to normal yesterday, no running sideways woohoo). He immediately bucked into canter. I tried again no spur, he bucked into canter.

The old round pen is so scary!

Clearly not from my spur... so it left me with the idea that he is using it to balance. Especially when we were on the left lead and he suddenly bucks and does a nice lead change to the wrong lead. So my newest theory is that when he feels unbalanced, he jumps into the air and hopes to land in balance. 

Time to prove him wrong. 

So I decided that I would throw him off balance when he bucked. This, I hoped, would prove to him that maybe bucking wasn't going to work out in his favor. Every time he tried to buck, he got spun in a small circle and me telling him "QUIT." It took him about five minutes to figure it out. 

And he never bucked again. Instead when I asked for canter, he sat down, brought his shoulders up, and gave me a GORGEOUS uphill transition. Every single time. Ahhh yesss. Love the smart baby horse. 

I got about three good ones each way and called it a day, we walked down the road and he begged for cookies while circling his tie up area (ugh need to learn patience) before I threw him back into his pasture.

Patience is hard. Look at that slowly developing neck though!

It was almost the end of the day but when I got to Rico, we still had a bit of daylight left. I hung out with my parents' dogs, realized my cat was turning 10 this year and freaked out, then rode Rico!

My goals with Rico are primarily soundness and strength right now. I feel like if I can get him a bit stronger and activate the right hind, he'll be happier in his work and stay sounder. 

WTF turkey vultures are way too brave... this was on my
way to Rico's from TC's

Yesterday I focused on an exercise called first position. Jane Savoie talks about it here. It's basically a very slight shoulder-fore. I think of it primarily as pushing the inside hind leg closer to the outside hind leg while carrying a hind of flexion to the inside. Not bend, not angle, just closing the base and a slight feel on the outside rein with inside flexion. 

It is especially helpful when your horse has a lazy/weak hind leg (Rico's right hind) and that leg is on the inside. It is also especially helpful to lift the inside shoulder, which (to the right) happens to be the shoulder that Rico leans on and makes his front foot sore. 

We started with turns on the forehand, primarily because it helps me to ride movements I'm working with TC on while I'm on Rico, but also because I wanted to get him more responsive to the first position aid. Then we worked first position at the walk.

Damn it's fun to ride a Grand Prix horse. He immediately picked up the right shoulder and became more active with that right hind leg that he hates to use so much.

Rico wondering why he has to use his right
hind leg, wtf

I then cantered from the walk and had the most brilliant STRAIGHT canter transition. He's been kind of a jerk about picking up the canter, especially the right lead. He really wants to throw the haunches right and spin around in some big ugly pirouette and THEN canter. 

A few lead changes (that were very straight) and then we came back to trot. Ahh his trot was so amazing. I couldn't sit it, so that was exciting. 

Overall, I was really pleased. I'm happy to be working on getting him stronger and improving his gaits without a goal in mind. It is letting me really go back to the basics and re-learn some of the stuff we were going over with Tracey in the beginning of our time with her. 

This picture does not do the sky last night justice